Peaceful civic poll not possible without central forces: WBSEC

The West Bengal State Election Commission has written for the second time asking the state government if it had taken up with the Centre availability of central forces to conduct peaceful civic elections in the state.
"In the prevailing law and order situation it will not be possible for us to conduct the upcoming civic polls in the state peacefully without the required number of central forces," State Election Commissioner S R Upadhyay said in a letter to state Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee today.
The poll panel had written a similar letter to the state government a week back on the issue.

Upadhayay said that the second letter to the Home Secretary was necessitated by the state government's failure to reply to the first letter.
"I have also asked him on whether he had received any communication from the Centre regarding availability of central forces for their deployment in the ensuing civic polls in the state," Upadhyay said.
"If it had any communication at all with the Centre on the issue and in case of any communication how many companies will be available and from which date, since we required at least 50 companies for civic polls in Kolkata and another 100 companies for the rest municipalities" Upadhyay said.

"If these number of central forces are not available, it will not be possible to conduct a peaceful civic polls in the state," Upadhyay observed.

He said state Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee had in a letter to him on March 25 said the state government had no objection in deployment of central forces for the civic polls in the state.
Election to the 144-seat Kolkata Municipal Corporation is slated for April 18, while polls to 91 municipalities across the state would be held on April 25.
Opposition parties in West Bengal have been demanding deployment of central forces for the municipal elections in the state.

To another question, Upadhyay said that he had asked the District Magistrate of Hooghly to submit a report on the ransacking of a police outpost at Champdani allegedly by the ruling party workers yesterday.