Panchayat election: Calcutta HC orders central force deployment in every booth
The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday ordered the deployment of central forces in every booth set up for the panchayat elections on July 8, with “necessary relaxation” with respect to the number of such personnel, in the form of sharing duties with state police forces, in each booth to be able to do this.
The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday ordered central troops for each of the 61,000-odd booths set up for the July 8 panchayat elections in Bengal.
To be able to achieve this with the help of the 822 companies that have been deployed, as per an earlier order by the high court, the division bench, headed by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam, allowed for “necessary relaxation” with regard to the number of personnel for each booth.
The “necessary relaxation” aspect was mentioned since, “given that about 65,000 active central force jawans are available for the rural polls, they can be deployed to guard only about 15,000-odd booths if the rule is followed”, explained a lawyer.
The order directs for the deployment of the “nearly 65,000 active personnel” (central armed police forces) and the “about 70,000“ state police forces “on a ratio of 50-50” to “solve the issue”.
