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.
Earlier, the Ministry had directed the deployment of 337 companies of CAPF, of which 224 companies of CAPF have already arrived in the State. Thus, a total of 822 companies of Central forces will be deployed in West Bengal on the day of polling, July 8. The Calcutta High Court had on June 21 directed Central forces that were not less than forces deployed in the 2013 panchayat polls be deployed in the State.
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.
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The decision to deploy an additional 485 companies is crucial as it comes five days before the day of polling in the State, which has witnessed several incidents of violence in the ongoing election process.
Two more deaths
Two persons, including a Trinamool Congress supporter and a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activist were killed in two separate incidents of violence. Paritosh Mondal, a Trinamool supporter, was found dead at Haora in North 24 Parganas district. Mondal was a resident of Kuchemora in the Sonapukur-Shankarpur area of the Haroa Police Station. Local residents claim that he died in an explosion while assembling crude bombs, whereas his wife claimed that her husband was murdered and had no history of being involved in violence.
In another development, Bankim Hansda, a BJP worker, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in the Manbazar-II block of Purulia district. According to the family members of the deceased BJP leader, he had gone campaigning for the party’s candidates but did not return in the night, and his body was found on Monday morning with injury marks.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari demanded an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the death. With these two deaths, the number of people who have died since the start of the nomination process for the panchayat polls has increased to 15.
Governor’s remarks
Meanwhile, Governor C. V. Ananda Bose, who was in north Bengal, returned to Kolkata and visited Basanti in South 24 Parganas, where Trinamool Congress leader Jiarul Mollah was killed on Saturday night. “Political Holi with human blood must end,” the Governor said after meeting the family members of the deceased leader, including his daughter Manowara Pakhija, who is a candidate of the ruling party in the panchayat polls.
“The violence which I noticed is isolated in certain pockets…. I, as a Governor, will not give a statement that there is widespread violence in the whole Bengal. We have to segregate the pockets where violence is there,” Dr. Bose said.
He added that he had made his own assessment on who the gang leaders involved in the violence were, and said that he would make the inputs available to the WBSEC.
The Governor said that he had summed up five points on the poll-related violence that he would make available to the Commission, and expressed the hope that “constitutional colleagues” would take note of it and “act in 48 hours”. The Governor said that 48 hours was not an ultimatum as he could not dictate terms to his colleagues in the Commission.
“The sad chapter of violence should end, will end, and we will together see to it that it ends,” the Governor stressed.
