Bengal Panchayat Polls: Deploy Equal Number of CAPF, State Armed forces in Booths, HC directs SEC

The Calcutta High Court Division Bench on Tuesday directed State Election Commission to deploy an equal number of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) and state armed forces in booths. The court also directed that CAPF to stay until the entire process of election is over.

The deputy solicitor general submitted before the court that there will be nearly 65,000 active central police personnel and 70,000 state police personnel and the deployment on a ratio of 50:50 will solve the issue. A division bench presided by Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam directed that the Inspector General, BSF, the force coordinator appointed by the central government, will pass necessary orders in this regard so that the deployment is made throughout the state.

The direction came after the State Election Commission (SEC) counsel submitted that there may be a technical difficulty in deploying central forces to all polling stations as it appears that there is a norm fixed by the central forces that one group cannot be split to less than four. It was stated that with all 822 companies of central forces deployed, there is likely to be an active personnel strength of around 65,000, while there are more than 61,000 polling booths.

The petitioners, representing a section of state government employees who are to be deployed for poll duty, flagged the issue of safety and security of polling personnel in all polling stations.

They expressed apprehension that considering the number of central armed police forces deployed, it will not be possible for them to guard all the polling stations in the state.

The Calcutta High Court had on June 21 directed Central forces that were not less than forces deployed in the 2013 panchayat polls be deployed in the State.

The panchayat polls in West Bengal are scheduled to be held on July 8. The polls will be held in a single phase and will cover all 234 districts in the state.