Two Army helicopters and 46,000 securitymen will be deployed in the first phase of elections for six Naxal-dominated Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, a top state government official said today.
"We have requisitioned two helicopters from the Army for polling duty during the first phase of general elections on six parliamentary seats in Bihar on April 10," Chief Secretary AK Sinha told reporters.
The deployment of the Army helicopters will be useful for aerial manning of the elections, he said, referring to the looming Maoists' threat to polls in the six constituencies.
In addition, 46,000 securitymen including 237 companies of security forces, 163 companies of central paramilitary force, 22,000 homeguards and rest from various units of state police will be deployed in six Lok Sabha constituencies during the first phase elections, Sinha said.
Around 2.76 lakh people have been acted upon under various preventive provisions, including 47,452 from the six Lok Sabha seats of Sasaram (SC), Karakat, Aurangabad, Gaya (SC), Nawada and Jamui (SC) going to the elections in the first phase, he said.
Referring to the Maoists' diktat to boycott the polls in the Naxal-affected constituencies, he said that the state administration has taken measures to tackle it.
Outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, state legislative Assembly speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary, LJP supremo Ramvilas Paswan's son Chirag Paswan and senior Congress leader Nikhil Kumar are among prominent persons out of 80 candidates in fray in six parliamentary seats going to polls in the first phase.
