Election Commission red-flags 15% polling stations in North Bengal as ‘critical’

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has designated 837 polling stations (PS), constituting nearly 15 per cent of the total 5814 PSs as “critical” for the first phase of elections on April 19. Cooch Behar, Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri will go for polls on April 19 – in the first phase while Raiganj, Balurghat and Darjeeling Parliamentary constituencies will witness voting on April 26, in the second phase.

The sensitivity rating of the booths is determined based on incidents occurring in the last three elections, including two Assembly polls and one Lok Sabha election.
About 1342 polling stations, amounting to 25 per cent of the 5298 booths have been marked as ‘highly sensitive’ by the poll panel for the second phase of polls.

The Commission will be deploying 263 companies of Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPF) to guard all 5814 polling stations and four strong rooms and manage the Quick Response Teams (QRTs) that will be involved in the first phase of polls on April 19.
Sources within the commission have identified Raiganj, where more than 500 among the 1730 polling booths (30 per cent) have been designated as “critical” as the “most sensitive constituency” among the six constituencies scheduled for polling in the first two phases of the election.

According to sources in the office of the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Jalpaiguri leads the list of critical polling stations in the first phase with 382 out of 1904 polling stations.

Cooch Behar is second in this list having 196 out of 2043 polling stations as highly sensitive. Alipurduar has 159 out of its 1867 PSs as critical.
For the second phase, 452 out of 1999 (22.61 per cent) polling stations in Darjeeling are critical while in Balurghat 382 out of 1569 that account for 24.34 per cent are “critical”.
“We are implementing special security measures through the use of technology as well as commissioning of additional Central forces to thoroughly secure all these booths and prevent any untoward incidents during the election,” a senior official in the ECI said.
The Commission will deploy 272 companies of Central forces to conduct the second phase of elections in the three parliamentary constituencies.
There will be 184 companies for North and South Dinajpur while Darjeeling will have 88 – 51 for Darjeeling, 21 for Siliguri Commissionerate (under Darjeeling parliamentary constituency) and 16 for Kalimpong (under Darjeeling parliamentary constituency).
The constituencies of the second phase of elections will cover four districts – South Dinajpur, North Dinajpur, Darjeeling and Kalimpong.