Bengal Panchayat polls: No info on sensitive booths despite requests, claims BSF

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state election commission seeking information on sensitive polling booths but no information was provided except on June 7, when they were informed of just the numbers of such booths but nothing about their location or any other information," said BSF DIG SS Guleria.  He clarified that the deployment of the BSF force was at the behest of the local administration. There were 59,000 troops of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) and state armed police who arrived from 25 states for election duty.  However, the forces were not adequately utilized on sensitive polling booths," Guleria added.  The BSF official stated that West Bengal has declared 4,834 sensitive booths on which only CAPFs are deployed but actually, there were more sensitive polling booths, ANI reported.  At least 12 people were killed and several injured in violence reported across the state during the Panchayat poll.

There were reports of booth capturing, damaging of ballot boxes, and assault of presiding officers from several districts such as Murshidabad, Cooch Behar, Malda, South 24 Parganas, and others.  The State Election Commission has set up a total of 61,636 polling booths to conduct elections for 3317 Gram Panchayats, 341 Panchayat Samitis, and 20 Zila Parishads in the state of West Bengal on Saturday. All ballot boxes were kept secured in the 339 strong rooms across the state and the responsibility to secure the strong rooms is given to Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) following the completion of the polling process on Saturday evening.    (With ANI inputs)