Despite repeated inquiries from the Border Security Force (BSF) on the sensitive polling booths, the West Bengal State Election Commission has not provided any information on the polling booths to the central security forces, a senior official said on Sunday. of the BSF. SS Guleria, DIG BSF said BSF wrote several letters to the state election commission seeking information about sensitive voting booths, but no information was provided except on June 7, when they were only informed of the number of these booths, but nothing on their location or any other information. He added that the deployment of BSF was at the request of the local administration. “There were 59,000 Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) troops and armed state police who arrived from 25 states for election duty, but they were not adequately utilized in the sensitive polling booths,” he said. he declared.
The state only declared 4,834 sensitive booths at which only CAPFs are deployed, but in reality there were more sensitive booths, DIG Guleria said. On Saturday, at least 13 people were killed and several injured in violence reported across the state during the Panchayat poll. Instances of capture of voting booths, damage to ballot boxes and assaults on presidents of several districts such as Murshidabad, Cooch Behar, Malda, South 24 Parganas, North Dinajpur and Nadia have been reported. BSF informed that the State Election Commission has set up a total of 61,636 voting booths to hold elections for 3,317 Gram Panchayats, 341 Panchayat Samitis and 20 Zila Parishads in the state of West Bengal on Saturday.
To ensure polling security, 59,000 members of the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and other state police forces were tasked with polling booth security across the state, which also includes 4,834 sensitive polling booths on which only CAPFs are deployed, they further informed. After the completion of the voting process in the evening, all ballot boxes have been secured in the 339 vaults across the state and responsibility for securing the vaults is handed over to the Central Armed Police Force.
