The autonomous body of Election Commission of India will hold a pivotal meeting to finalise the election schedule for four states and one Union Territory. The meeting will be headed by the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, other than the election schedule the deployment of security forces and number of sensitive booths in each polling state will also be discussed.
The four states which are going under elections include Assam, Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and one Union Terriotory Puducherry.
Due the prevailing conditions of the covid-19 pandemic the elections in West Bengal may be conducted in seven to eight phases, while elections in 2016 were held in total six phases.
Bengal is going to have the highest number of sensitive booths among all the five polling states that are around 6,400 booths. The number of polling stations have also been raised from 78,903 to 1,01,790 in the state.
As per the Election Commission about 125 companies of central security forces will arrive in Bengal o February 25 to maintain the law and order situation during elections in the state. The early arrival of the forces in the state has astounded the state administration.
There will be around 60 companies of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 30 companies of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), 25 companies of Border Security Force (BSF) and five companies of each the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
According to the hints the Election Commission was already keeping an eye on the law and order situation in the state as it had asked the district authorities to report it about the situation time to time. Sudeep Jain the Deputy Election Commissioner of Bengal has been in the constant touch with the officials of the Election Commission.
Amid the path to the elections both the ruling TMC and BJP are in constant row with each other accusing each other of killing the Opposition party workers as in last year the convoy of BJP Chief J P Nadda was attacked allegedly by the TMC supporters.
Sudeep Jain who is in charge of Election Commission in Bengal has been regularly visiting the state from last six months to review the situation and the preparedness for the elections. He will again visit the state on Thursday, where he will hold meetings with the district magistrates, police superintendents and other senior officials of the state.
Later he will also meet the district election officers, zonal IGs, DIGs, SPs, CPs and the divisional commissioners of all the districts of which he will make a report. The report will then be send to the Election Commission.
