Row over 'missing' central forces

Jalpaiguri: Where have the central forces gone? The opposition's charges and Trinamool Congress's silence added twists and turns to Thursday's biggest poll plot.
Nearly 118 companies of central forces were to be deployed in the four Lok Sabha constituencies that went to polls on Thursday. But hardly any jawans were seen at polling stations since most of them were left sitting on EVM duty or deployed on route marches.A few sections were used as flying squads, but by the time any commotion was reported, it was already too late for them to make any difference. In contrast, in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, paramilitary jawans were seen at almost every polling booth.
Who is responsible for deciding how central forces would be used? The district administration recommends the deployment, which has to be then ratified by special observer and police observer, said an Election Commission official.
In Cooch Behar, Dinhata MLA Udayan Guha was the first to raise the flag. "Where are the central forces? I haven't come across any." This was quickly echoed in Alipurduar by RSP candidate Manohar Tirkey, who lodged a complaint with Election Commission.
Trinamool Congress didn't make any noise over it though North Bengal development minister Gautam Deb and Darjeeling candidate Bhaichung Bhutia accused Gorkha Janamukti Morcha of trying to "grab" polling booths. Deb and Trinamool's Alipurduar in-charge Saurav Chakraborty said they would resist booth grabbing. But what's significant is that neither Trinamool leader brought police into picture, least of all central forces.
The Opposition alleged that the absence of paramilitary jawans emboldened Trinamool cadres to launch attacks. In Jalpaiguri's Kukurjan locality, Trinamool supporters assaulted a CPM supporter and broke his arm. Three women were also beaten up. By the time paramilitary personnel arrived, the attacker had left. This wasn't marked a sensitive booth although a similar assault took place during last year's panchayat polls.
A senior police officer in Kurseong said: "They (a BSF team) conducted route marches till yesterday evening. Today they have been posted at the DCRCs (dispatch and receiving centres for EVMs). This happened earlier too."
There was also a technical complication in the deployment of central forces, say officials. It was apparent during the 2013 panchayat polls, as well. State Election Commission secretary Tapas Ray said: "According to the standard operating procedure, one section (around eight personnel) must be deployed on a specific duty. If we were to deploy them at a polling station (or premises), we would have to do it in teams of eight. There are about 57,000 booths and premises. The numbers simply didn't work out. We wrote at least thrice to let us deploy at least half a section, but it wasn't possible. So they had to be deputed for other strategic work, like confidence building, area domination and flying squads."
If this is the thumb rule, can EC make an exception to suit the situation? According to Nirbed Roy of Congress and Rabin Deb of CPM - who coordinate with EC on a regular basis - they always believed that half a section of paramilitary forces can be deployed at highly sensitive booths and the rest will have at least two armed state policemen.
EC special observer for Bengal Sudhir Kumar Rakesh said: "Deployment of paramilitary forces was planned on the basis of feedback from the district administration and observers. Some of them were deputed at polling premises. Not all could be posted at booths, (because) we didn't have the numbers."
Forward Bloc's Guha pointed out that the police observer for Cooch Behar arrived only on Wednesday evening. "Within 12 hours he was on the road, and he didn't have to time to know the situation. So it is only human that he will go by the feedback of the district administration. Incidentally, it's the same set of officers who had supervised the panchayat polls," he said.
This covered 7443 polling booths and 5605 polling stations (with more than one booths). But a technicality and a deployment pattern sawThe later isn't an issue, already 25,000 of State Armed Police (SAP) have been deployed for the first-phase polls.