Daily reports on CAPF deployment in Bengal to be sent to ECI

Kolkata, March 26 (IANS) Daily reports of the activities of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) already deployed in West Bengal will have to be sent to the national headquarters of the Election Commission from the end of the current month.

Starting from March 29, the report of activities of the deployed personnel for the previous day will reach the office of ECI daily at 10 a.m., said insiders from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.

The EC observers for different areas will send their reports to the office of CEO and the latter in turn will compile and send them to ECI

Sources in the CEO office said that the daily reports were being sought to ensure that CAPF personnel already deployed remain at the optimum level of efficiency so that they can be utilized to the best as per requirement evolving any time.

The sources also said that the proposed exercise of daily reports was also intended at avoiding complaints from a section of the political parties that CAPF personnel were kept idle and not utilized effectively for area domination to avoid pre-poll violence.

Already 150 companies of CAPF personnel are deployed in different pockets in West Bengal and another 27 companies are scheduled to arrive in the state during the current week.

Of the 27 companies, the maximum deployment will be from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) with 15 companies, followed by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) with seven and Border Security Force (BSF) with five.

The Election Commission has already earmarked a deployment of 920 companies of CAPF for West Bengal for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. This is the highest among all Indian states (including Jammu and Kashmir).

The commission had started deploying CAPF companies even before the dates of polls and counting were announced earlier this month.