Calcutta, May 5: The Indo-Tibetan Border Police not only made “frequent demands” for air-conditioned vehicles since their arrival in Murshidabad, but also misbehaved with police officers who couldn’t arrange them, the district police said today.

Reacting to The Telegraph report that said the ITBP had refused to escort the polling personnel back to Behrampore from Nowda on Wednesday evening because they were not provided with AC vehicles, its battalion commandant, M. Kumar, today claimed that all they had insisted on was “roadworthy” vehicles.

The demand had resulted in polling officials of 80 booths and EVMs being stranded at Nowda, 40 km from Behrampore, till 1 am on Thursday.

Murshidabad police chief Niraj Kumar Singh said the ITBP men had been insisting on AC vehicles for their commandants and deputy commandants from the day they arrived. “We cannot afford to provide so many air-conditioned vehicles in Murshidabad ? they had more than 30 commandants. The ITBP people even misbehaved with Nowda police officials because they couldn’t arrange AC vehicles for them,” said Singh.

The Election Commission has ordered a probe. “We can’t let incidents like this pass. I’ve asked for a report from the Murshidabad administration,” deputy election commissioner Anand Kumar said.

The ITBP, however, dubbed reports that its officers had insisted on AC vehicles “totally false” and said the delay in sending the voting machines to strongrooms was a result of “genuine administrative problems”.

Kumar said “when all EVMs of the sector were assembled at the cluster point, no vehicle for escort was available” to travel to Behrampore.

The district police chief said the ITBP was given “an adequate number of roadworthy vehicles”.

“At midnight, I had to send the additional SP along with a big contingent of RAF to escort the polling personnel and EVMs back,” Singh added.

He further alleged that two ITBP sub-inspectors had met him at the district intelligence branch office on poll eve and demanded AC cars. “We offered them very good vehicles. But they insisted on AC Tata Sumos.”

District magistrate N. Manjunatha Prasad noticed around midnight that the Nowda polling personnel had not returned.

“I called the ITBP deputy commandant, Kundan Prasad, and asked him why he wasn’t bringing the polling parties back and he said ‘the vehicles are not roadworthy’. At 12.30 am, I had to ask additional SP Shankar Chakraborty to bring the stranded officials and EVMs back. They reached the Behrampore strongrooms around 2.30,” Prasad said today.