West Bengal: Tight security for 5th phase of elections

The Election Commission is making extraordinary security arrangements for the fifth phase of the six-phase Assembly election in Bengal, which will be held in 53 constituencies across South 24 Parganas, Hooghly and south Kolkata on Saturday. The commission has given strict orders to police to ensure that anti-socials or other trouble-makers should either be arrested or should be sent out of the constituencies where polling will be held. The neighbourhood clubs and the jails within the polling area will be kept under surveillance.

There will be a total deployment of 650 companies of Central paramilitary forces for ensuring free and fair polls and the Commission is using the services of nearly 23,000 security personnel, including 113 companies of CPF just for the Kolkata constituencies. Saturday is the most crucial phase of the Assembly elections, which will decide the fate of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, heavyweight state ministers Firhad Hakim, Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee, Manish Gupta, Aroop Biswas and city mayor Sovan Chatterjee. In a specific instruction, the EC has stated that prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC would be promulgated on poll day and enforced strictly to ensure that any unlawful assembly is effectively curbed. Night patrolling involving CPF had started from Thursday night. Naka checking and confidence building measures like route march involving CPF yielded results on Friday when more than two dozen crude bombs were recovered by the police and Central forces personnel from near two clubs under the Ballygunge and Bhowanipore Assembly constituencies on Friday afternoon. While 10 bombs were found kept hidden under the staircase of a building adjoining a club at Tiljala Road, 14 more bombs were recovered from the roof of a cement godown beside a club at Alipore Road in Chetla of Bhowanipore. The measures of night patrolling and strict enforcement of 144 CrPC by the EC during the fourth phase elections in North 24 Parganas and Howrah had prevented rigging to a large extent. A number of Trinamul leaders, including CM Banerjee, had termed the measures as “excess”.

Ms Banerjee had referred the enforcement of section 144 as “curfew.”

Over 1.23 crore voters, including 60.07 lakh women will exercise their franchise in 14,642 polling stations to decide the fate of 349 candidates. CPF will be deployed in all polling premises and ‘lathi’-wielding state personnel will facilitate queue management outside the polling booths. The Election Commission has instructed BSF to seal the international borders. The police had been given specific orders to ensure that no outsiders can take shelter in clubs and intimidate voters on poll day.. Specific orders have also been given to keep the jails under strict surveillance so that no criminals from inside can threaten voters .

Voting is taking place in 6,979 polling premises across the three districts having 1,064 polling sectors. The poll panel has set up 1075 model polling stations in the fourth phase. There will be 390 polling stations which will have all women polling personnel.

The EC has identified total 2,685, 1,605 and 1008 vulnerable hamlets and 2,098, 18 and 906 vulnerable voters in South 24 Parganas, Kolkata South and Hooghly districts respectively.