Patna, July 13: Around 1,000 Bihar Military Police (BMP) personnel, assigned panchayat polls duty in Bengal, waited for over five hours at Danapur railway station on Friday and went back as chief minister Nitish Kumar’s clearance never came.

The BMP personnel, drawn from different battalions stationed at Patna, Dumroan, Bodhgaya, Muzaffarpur, Katihar and Jamalpur, boarded a special train at Danapur around 9am on Friday to leave for Bengal.

Commandant of 9th battalion stationed at Jamalpur, Kuer Singh, led the forces. One air-conditioned and 10 general compartments were reserved for them after a Union home ministry directive.

But the special train had not set off even till 3pm, as, sources said, there was no approval from the chief minister’s secretariat to dispatch the force.

“The force was kept in readiness, anticipating approval from the chief minister, who holds the home department with him,” a senior police officer said.

Under cover of anonymity, a police officer said the police headquarters had sent letters to commandants of the respective battalions to send one company each for the Bengal polls. Ten deputy superintendents of police from each battalion were issued orders to accompany their respective forces.

All personnel arrived at the railway station with their belongings, including firearms and ammunition, around 9am.

The train was scheduled to set off at 10am. But even after waiting till 2pm, the train did not leave. The commandant leading the force was clueless.

“I am not aware what is happening at the headquarters,” Kuer Singh was heard telling one of the 10 DSPs.

Around 3pm, the security personnel were asked to alight from the train and return to their respective battalions with bags and baggage in the absence of any directive from the home department.

A day later, BMP deputy inspector general Ajay Kumar Mishra told The Telegraph: “I am sitting in my office on a Saturday despite it being a holiday. Till 3pm (Saturday) there is no directive from headquarters whether the force would be dispatched.”

Mishra said the train was cancelled and the security personnel belonging to different battalions had to return to their places of posting.

Additional director-general of police (BMP) Abhay Kumar Upadhyay said that a total of 10 companies of the elite force were to be dispatched by a special train to Bengal. “The force could not leave because of some technical reasons,” he said.

The Border Security Force stationed at Kishanganj had provided credit notes for facilitating travel from Danapur to Howrah.

Home department’s principal secretary Amir Subhani was reluctant to explain why the force could not reach Bengal for the panchayat poll.

Sources said that the file pertaining to approval for sending the police force to Bengal was pending in the chief minister’s secretariat for the past week.

Interestingly, both Nitish and Mamata Banerjee had headed the railway ministry before being elected chief ministers of Bihar and Bengal, respectively.

The Bengal office of the election commission had requested the Centre to provide paramilitary forces for the five-phase panchayat elections, which started on Thursday. The rural polls in Bengal were overdue for several months and the state had witnessed a war of words between the government, election commission and the judiciary till the Supreme Court intervened a fortnight ago. Several other states have also sent forces, including special police personnel, on election duty to Bengal districts.