Kolkata, 4 July: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the West Bengal State Election Commission to deploy central armed forces alongside the state forces in each and every polling booth during the upcoming panchayat elections on July 8.
According to the court’s direction the state and central armed forces should be deployed in each polling station in a 50:50 ratio.
The direction was given by the division bench of justice TS Shivagnanam after the commission prayed before the court to pass an appropriate order on the formula for the deployment of central and state forces based on the total number of available forces with the poll body.
Notably, the Ministry of Home Affairs on July 3, agreed to the deployment of an additional 485 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) as well State Armed Police Forces for the West Bengal panchayat polls. A communication in this regard was sent to the West Bengal State Election Commission (WBSEC) during the day on Monday.
On Monday, the WBSEC submitted a compliance report before the Calcutta High Court, which pointed out that the Commission has designated 4,834 polling booths or 7.8% of the 61,636 polling booths in the State as ?sensitive?. While the counsel of the WBSEC was expressing the challenges in deploying Central forces at each of the polling booths, the Ministry?s ascent to deploy 485 companies was brought to the notice of Calcutta High Court.
