CRPF jawan Satish Chandra on poll duty in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati.

Life of Satish Chandra, 47, an assistant sub-inspector of 144 battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), has been tough for the past 30 days.

Chandra, along with his company, had to come all along from Srinagar to Bhubaneswar to guard the two strong rooms at the BJB college, where EVM machines have been kept after the polls.

The 35-member platoon of the CRPF, including Chandra, was posted in Srinagar where the temperature was below 0°C. Now, they found themselves engaged in job in a hot and sultry weather. The city has been reeling from heatwave for the past one month with temperature crossing 43°C yesterday.

However, Chandra appears quite satisfied with the facilities provided by the state government.

“As soon as we reached the state, the government provided accommodation with fans and drinking water facilities. Earlier, I did poll duties in other states, but the facilities here are the best,” he said.

Chandra, a voter under the Firozabad parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh, failed to caste his vote due to his assignments.

The three-tier security arrangement made for the strong rooms includes the central armed police force, which will guard the inner circle followed by the state armed police force that will be at the second tier and the peripheral tier will be under local police. There are as many as 64 strong rooms across the state.

As the security is deployed round the clock, the CRPF personnel at both the strong rooms at the BJB college are performing their duty on rotation basis.

A makeshift kitchen at the college is at their disposal. “As we have to remain alert, we only interact within us during spare time,” said a security officer.

The personnel are hopeful that they would be granted leave in phases after the election duty is over.

“All our leaves were cancelled from January keeping an eye on the poll schedule. However, we are hopeful that we would be granted leaves after the counting is over. We would be released either by May 16 or 17,” said another CRPF personnel.

“We performed poll duties in the two phases of election that took place in the state. After that we were assigned duty outside the strong rooms. We are eagerly waiting for the counting date as we can go home on leave,” said Krutibas Kanhar, a constable of the Odisha Auxiliary Police Force, deployed at the college.