Voting in 30 seats on Saturday -across five districts — East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia and Jhargram

EC sources said each booth premises will be guarded by paramilitary personnel, while the state police will be responsible for maintaining law and order in the area

Security forces keep vigil at the border area of Silli (Jharkhand) and Purulia district ahead of the first phase of West Bengal Assembly polls, on Thursday.: PTI photo

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Pranesh Sarkar, Snehamoy Chakraborty   |   TT   |   Calcutta, Jhargram   |   27.03.21 : A total of 730 companies of paramilitary forces will be deployed in the first phase of the Bengal Assembly polls on Saturday.

Thirty seats spread across five districts — East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia and Jhargram — would go to the polls and a total of 73,80,942 people are eligible to exercise their franchise.

Each company of the central force comprises nearly 80 armed jawans.

Sources in the Election Commission of India said each booth premises would be guarded by paramilitary personnel and state police would be responsible for maintaining law and order in the area outside the polling premises.

Single-booth premises would be guarded by eight jawans (one section) of central forces, while two, three and four-booth premises would be secured by 16 jawans (two sections).

“The central force would guard the polling premises and they would be responsible to deal with untoward incidents within a radius of 100 meters. The rest of the area would be under the jurisdiction of state police. The police would have quick response teams that include central forces so that security personnel can reach the spots in case of anything untoward happens,” said a source in the poll panel.

According to the plan, 659 companies of central forces would be deployed to guard 10,288 booths during the first phase of the polls and the remaining 71 companies of central forces would be deployed to form quick response teams along with the state police and sector duty.

The police have also deployed more than 40 inspectors and 100-odd sub-inspectors, along with nearly 4,000 constables, home guards and NVFs, for the first phase .

“I last saw such a heavy deployment of central and state forces during the 2006 Assembly polls where 100 percent booth premises were guarded by the central force jawans,” said a senior IPS officer.

“The state police were not given any responsibility within a radius of 100 meters of the booth premises then. Only an NVF person would be allowed on the booth premises to arrange the queues.”

Sources in the administration said the heavy deployment reminded the promise of Union home minister Amit Shah in his recent public meetings that no goons of Trinamul would be on road due to the heightened security arrangements.

Several leaders from the districts where polling would be held said that such a heavy deployment might actually frighten the common people and many of whom might not come out to vote out of fear.

“A total of 21 Assembly segments in Jungle Mahal would vote tomorrow (Saturday). The area is sensitive about the presence of armed forces. Common people consider heavy force deployment as a sign of something wrong. This might leave an effect on the polling percentage,” said Pulin Bihari Baske, the CPM district committee secretary in Jhargram and a party nominee from West Midnapore’s Kesiyari.

Moreover, the EC announced the entire polling process would be web cast from 5,399 booths.

The unprecedented deployment was visible in several booths by Friday afternoon even before polling officials reached the booth.

In Amdanga Rural school in Lalgarh, it was found that eight armed SSB jawans were deployed there from 2.30 pm on Friday even if the polling officials were yet to reach the polling station.

“We have reached here early to check the situation here. The force would take their position as soon as the polling personnel reach here,” a sub-inspector of SSB said.

Chhatradhar Mahato, Trinamul's state committee member and face of Lalgarh movement, also said that he never witnessed such a heavy deployment in recent elections in Jungle Mahal.

“I don’t know why such a tight security arrangement was made. In this area, over 90 percent of people come to polling booths to cast their votes. If the polling percentage dips this time, the heavy deployment extra security will be the sole reason,” said Mahato.

BJP leaders, however, said the commission did the right thing considering the situation happened in the last Panchayat election when oppositions could not file nomination papers too.

“Trinamul will not get any chance to manipulate the polling system this time. They should recall what they did in the last panchayat polls,” said a BJP leader in Jhargram.

A section of the officials, however, said Jungle Mahal usually don’t have a record of electoral malpractices and even in 2018 panchayat polls, elections were held in majority of the rural body seats where the Trinamul candidates were defeated in a large number of seats.

Common voters of Jungle Mahal were surprised over such a huge deployment of forces.

“This year’s election is completely different. So many forces and leaders are visiting our village this time. I hope everything is fine,” said Sushil Mahato, 72, a voter from Salbani’s Bhimpur village.

Tension erupted in Salboni after the body of a BJP worker Lalmohan Soren was found hanging from a tree in Bagmari village on Friday morning. ADG (law and order), Jag Mohan, said: “The matter is being investigated and no report has reached the state administrative headquarters yet.”