Deb : Ready to sort it out

Calcutta, Feb. 13: Under fire from the Election Commission, state chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb has convened a meeting at Writers? Buildings tomorrow to discuss the modalities for executing nearly 60,000 non-bailable arrest warrants not executed for years.

The commission has also summoned Deb and chief electoral officer Debashish Sen to Delhi on February 20 for an update on the state?s law and order situation. Home secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy and director-general of police S.V. Avasthy have also been called.

Roy and Sen will attend tomorrow?s meeting that would also discuss how to track down illegal arms and ammunition ahead of the elections.

The poll panel had directed the chief secretary to call the meeting after coming to know that only 951 non-bailable warrants had been executed across the state.

On February 20, the panel will ask the chief secretary and the chief electoral officer about the steps the government is taking to ensure smooth polls.

Till January 24, about 10 lakh names were deleted from the draft electoral rolls and 21 lakh added. The possibility of further deletions remains as a fresh voter verification drive in urban and municipal areas will continue till the filing of nominations.

State CPM secretary Anil Biswas said the party is ?highly satisfied?? with the work done by the observers in West Midnapore, Hooghly and Nadia. He also tried to clarify that he had not uttered anything defamatory against the observers, saying his stand was that Opposition parties were trying to use them as polling agents as they did not have the strength to put up agents in poll booths.