NEW DELHI, Mar 16: The Election Commission of India (ECI) will deploy around 3.4 lakh Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) personnel along with state police forces in the seven-phase Lok Sabha and the Assembly polls in four States beginning April 19.
Officials said a maximum of 92,000 personnel of CAPFs are likely to be deployed in politically volatile West Bengal, where elections will be held in all seven phases, followed by 63,500 personnel in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, where polling will be held in five phases. As many as 36,000 personnel will be deployed in Naxal-affected Chhattisgarh, where polling will be held in three phases.
The ECI has considered the requests made by the State CEOs and decided to deploy a maximum of around 3,400 companies of the CAPFs in all States and Union Territories in a phased manner to ensure free, fair and peaceful elections, officials said.
A maximum of 920 companies of CAPFs are expected to be deployed in West Bengal in a phased manner, followed by 635 companies in Jammu and Kashmir, 360 companies in Chhattisgarh, 295 companies in Bihar, 252 companies in Uttar Pradesh and 250 companies each in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab, the official said. A CAPF company comprises around 100 personnel.
The CAPFs are the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and National Security Guard (NSG). The combined strength of all CAPFs is around 10 lakh.
The entire force mobilisation will be completed in the next few days. Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim will also be held coinciding with the Lok Sabha polls.
In other States where a sizeable number of CAPFs are expected to be deployed are: 200 companies each in Gujarat, Manipur, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, 175 companies in Odisha, 160 companies each in Assam and Telangana, 150 in Maharashtra, 113 in Madhya Pradesh, 100 in Tripura among others.
Those forces which will be deployed in West Bengal, Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas and Jammu and Kashmir have already reached their respective destinations. According to the plan, about 2,000 companies were mobilised as part of the pre-poll deployment in sensitive and hyper-sensitive constituencies beginning March 1. About 1.5 lakh personnel will move through roads and rail as part of this mobilisation, another official said.
The Railways have also made available adequate rolling stocks with all appropriate facilities in trains, thereby ensuring hassle-free and timely movement of the forces to perform election duties. Officials said the CAPF personnel are being deployed for poll-related duties, such as area domination, confidence-building measures, poll day-related duties, guarding of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and strong room centres, counting centre security, etc during the elections.
(Manas Dasgupta)