West Bengal Police to manage civic polls, says election body

Kolkata, Nov 14 (IANS) Though the BJP has been continuously demanding central forces during the civic polls in West Bengal, but the State Election Commission, after a meeting with the state government, has decided to conduct the polls with the state forces only and has asked Acting DGP Manoj Malviya to submit a detailed plan of security arrangements within seven days.

"There has been no record of conducting civic polls with the help of Central forces. Once the panchayat election was held with Central forces only. In the rest of all the civic polls, state forces were used. In other states also, civic polls are conducted with the help of state forces. So, there is no need for Central forces in this election. We have asked the DG to submit a detailed plan of security arrangements within seven days," a senior official of the State Election Commission said.

The issue of security arrangement was settled at a meeting with the top state government officials on Saturday.

The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Hare Krishna Dwivedi, Home Secretary B.P. Gopalika, Acting DGP Malviya, Health Secretary Narayan Swarup Nigam, ADG Law and Order Javed Shamim along with the State Election Commission and senior government officials.

The total number of booths in 144 wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation is 4,800 and there are altogether 1,213 booths in 50 wards of the Howrah Municipal Corporation. Though the final security arrangement is yet to be finalised, the senior state police officer said that there will be a three-tier security arrangements outside the booth and in the polling premises.

According to the security design, the first tier and the outer ring of the security mechanism will be manned by armed forces. The inner ring will be handled by non-armed forces who will be responsible for maintaining the queue.

Surces in the police force also confirmed that there will be mobile forces and High-Flying Radio Squad (HFRS) for maintaining law and order in the area.

"The state force and Kolkata police will be equally deployed for conducting the election smoothly. The distribution of the force and their responsibilities is yet to be determined," the officer added.

The State Election Commission also had a detailed discussion with the Health Secretary regarding arrangements to be made considering the pandemic situation in the state. "We are yet to get the final voters list. It will be released on November 17 and after that we can make a detailed planning regarding the queue management, maintaining social distancing and Covid protocols," a SEC official said.