SEC seeks booth categorisation report from dists for rural

The West Bengal State Election Commission(SEC) has asked the district magistrates and superintendents of police to prepare a comprehensive report on the categorisation of booths in their respective districts for the coming panchayat polls, sources in it said.

The SEC wants deployment of armed police personnel in every booth, an SEC official said.

The booths have been categorised as 'super sensitive', 'sensitive', 'low sensitive' and 'normal' and based on this the SEC, based on this categorisation, will ask the police to decide on deployment of security personnel in the booths, he said.

"We have asked the district administration to prepare a report on the categorisation of booths. The DMs and SPs will jointly prepare this report. We will get the report by early next week," the SEC official said.

According to SEC sources, the deployment of the police personnel will depend on the number of booths in a polling premises.

There are about 58467 booths in the state out of which elections will not be held in 11016 as the contestants have been elected uncontested.

The SEC had earlier this week held a meeting with the state home secretary, DGP and ADG (law and order) on security arrangement for the panchayat polls in the state.

According to sources, the SEC has asked the police to act upon the poll-related complaints filed by various political parties during filing of nomination filing.

A delegation of state BJP unit met the SEC today and expressed their reservations over the security arrangement and urged for necessary arrangements.

"We are being attacked while campaigning for the panchayat polls. The police is not providing us security," senior BJP leader Jaiprakash Majumdar claimed.

The BJP has submitted the list of places and candidates where they have been allegedly attacked by TMC goons.

The TMC termed BJP's allegations as baseless and accused it of trying to disturb the peaceful atmosphere of the state.