The Election Commission (EC) has cancelled the contract of the agency that supplied web cameras during the 2021 West Bengal assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha elections after finding major irregularities in footage.
Three new vendors have now been selected to provide the equipment, a senior official said on Monday. The decision followed the discovery of serious discrepancies while reviewing recordings from cameras used in previous elections.
“The Commission has made it clear that there should be no lapse in the conduct of polling. If violence or disturbance takes place at a booth, the poll will be stopped and re-conducted. Repolling will be held as many times as required,” an EC official said.
Another EC source added, “When the recordings from the 2021 assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha elections were examined, about 30 per cent of the cameras had no recording at all. In another 30 per cent, only about half an hour of footage at the start and end of polling was found, while the rest was blank.”
Many of these cameras were installed at sensitive booths where incidents of violence had been reported. The missing recordings also meant the EC could not submit footage in court in cases related to post-poll violence.
The problem was identified during checks in the Kaliganj assembly by-election, after which the earlier agency’s contract was cancelled and a new vendor was chosen through a fresh tender.
Under the new plan, cameras will be installed both inside and outside polling booths, especially in sensitive or violence-prone areas.
“In sensitive locations, two cameras will be installed at each booth. Observers will decide the number of such booths based on law-and-order reports,” an official said.
West Bengal currently has about 80,719 polling booths. With several thousand auxiliary booths likely to be added, officials said at least two lakh cameras will be needed across the state.
Cameras will also be placed in vehicles used by Static Surveillance Teams (SST) and Flying Squad Teams (FST), which operate after the model code of conduct comes into effect to prevent parties from influencing voters with cash, liquor, or gifts.
“The cameras in these vehicles will help monitor where and when checks are being conducted and whether there is any negligence in duty,” an official said. The cameras will have battery backup to continue recording even when the vehicle engine is off.
Control rooms to monitor the feeds will be set up at district magistrates’ offices, the Chief Electoral Officer's office in Kolkata, and the EC headquarters in New Delhi.