Ranchi, Oct. 26: The Election Commission today held detailed discussions on the state’s security and logistics requirements during the November-December Assembly elections, preparing the groundwork for a possible visit to Jharkhand by chief election commissioner Navin Chawla on November 3.

Deputy election commissioner Alok Shukla held a lengthy discussion with EC officials in the state, including chief electoral officer Debesh Gupta, seeking to know, for example, the number of anti-landmine vehicles the state would need and the number of sensitive booths where polling personnel would have to be air-dropped to conduct elections smoothly.

During its interaction with state officials, deputy commissioners and police chiefs of all districts via video conferencing today, the Election Commission’s apprehensions about the threat of Maoist violence during the five-phased elections were apparent.

“EC officials sought to know our requirements, say, of the number of helicopters to airlift poll personnel, anti-landmine vehicles for security forces to patrol sensitive areas, etc,” said a deputy commissioner of a Naxalite-affected district in Singhbum-Kolhan commissinary.

Except for the six Santhal Pargana districts, a majority of booths in the remaining 18 districts were in the sensitive or hyper-sensitive category. Not only booths, even approach roads and surrounding areas needed to be sanitised before voting day, said a senior police officer.

According to sources, West Singhbhum district sought 15 anti-landmine vehicles form its existing five and cited 31 polling stations where officials needed to be air-dropped.

Gumla demanded four anti-landmine vehicles, and suggested eight cluster points for airdropping officials and poll paraphernalia. Similar demands came form other districts too.

State joint chief electoral officer Ashok Kumar Sinha, however, described today’s discussions as routine since, he claimed, talks centred on all aspects of electioneering in the state where companies of central paramilitary forces had already started arriving.