The Election Commission has tasked 2,400 companies of central forces, or roughly 1.92 lakh troops, with maintaining the “sanctity” of polling booths during the Bengal Assembly polls.
During a videoconference with district election officers, SPs and poll observers last week, the EC made it clear that the central forces would be in charge of the booths, offering protection to polling personnel and EVMs. “Booths used to be under the control of presiding officers, who are state officials. Central force jawans were allowed to enter the booths only when the presiding officers called them. Now, central force jawans will maintain the sanctity of the booths,” a poll panel source said.
Under the plan, central forces will reach the booths before polling officials and scan the locality. When the polling officials reach the booths after randomisation at the dispensation and receipt centres, their photographs, along with those of the jawans, will have to be uploaded to the ECI NET platform.
“This will let us know which jawans are deployed in which booths. If anything goes wrong, the jawans will be held accountable,” the poll panel source said.
Sources said the jawans would handle untoward incidents such as booth capturing, booth jamming and intimidation of voters standingin queues.
Central force jawans would also be deployed in surveillance and quick-response teams that would act on complaints of Internet jamming and voter intimidation within a 100-metre radius of booths.
“The number of central force jawans in a booth will be determined after the identification of sensitive booths in a district. The sensitive booths for the first phase of polls on April 23 will be identified by April 18,” a poll panelsource said.
The EC has said there will be no shortage of central forces to hold free and fair elections in Bengal. The poll panel will also give additional authority to police observers to deploy central forces during the polls.
“The police observers can call the central forces in case of complaints about any untoward incident. Earlier, central forces used to be under the control of the district authorities, who often failed to use them properly,” said a senior poll panel official.