West Bengal polling officers, fearful of their safety, are protesting the lack of security forces at polling stations across the state.
ABP Ananda reported on Wednesday that in the first phase of elections in West Bengal, out of 2,732 booths, only 120 will have Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
The officials have demanded the presence of CRPF soldiers at every polling booth and free and fair elections should be allowed, without any hindrance. If polling stations are rigged, the officials should be able to write the truth, without returning officials pressuring them to write the elections off as normal.
When polling officials in north Bengal were called for election training on Friday, they protested the lax security measures. On Saturday, again, around 400 officials protested when they were called for training at the Om Dayal Engineering College in Howrah.
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During 2018’s panchayat elections, the mutilated body of Raiganj presiding official Rajkumar Roy was found on the railway tracks in North Dinajpur, after he was kidnapped from the polling booth.
A local CPI(M) leader told NewsCentral24x7, “Since Trinamool Congress (TMC) came to power, central forces are not deployed during elections at every booth. Instead, the state government deploys civic police. They are mostly recruited by the TMC cadre. The civic police are not even paid a fixed salary and they think that they work for chief minister Mamata Banerjee.”
Speaking to NewsCentral24x7, a school teacher who was a part of the protest at the Om Dayal Engineering College said, “No presiding official will work in the state if only civic police are deployed and our demands are not met. We demand no civic police in polling stations. The civic police play a role of Trinamool cadre.”