Kamal Ghorui
KOLKATA: Murshidabad, the district which recorded the highest number of deletions from the voters’ list in Bengal during the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, will also have the largest contingent of central forces deployed ahead of the first phase of the assembly elections on April 23.Close to 7.4 lakh names were deleted from the roll in the Muslim-majority Murshidabad district. Around 316 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) will be deployed there, Election Commission sources said.In all, 2,407 companies of CAPF, which means at least 1.73 lakh personnel, will be taking positions in 152 constituencies, spread across 16 districts, that vote on April 23. The deployment for Bengal will be the highest ever in the state. During the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, held in seven phases in Bengal, 900 companies of CAPF had arrived in the state. In the 2021 state polls, split into eight phases, EC had sent around 725 companies. According to the deployment plan, the Murshidabad and Jangipur police districts of Murshidabad will get 240 and 76 companies of central forces, respectively.East Midnapore will see the second-highest CAPF deployment (273 companies) among the districts going to the polls in the first phase, followed by West Midnapore (271 companies). The politically significant Nandigram constituency, where BJP has fielded the leader of opposition in the assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, is in East Midnapore.EC also announced that 40,928 state police personnel will be deployed for the first phase of the polls. Here, too, the highest number has been reserved for Murshidabad – 4,216 for the Murshidabad police district and 1,550 for the Jangipur police district.Each CAPF company has at least 72 personnel.“CAPF deployment will be more than four times the number of state police personnel,” an EC official said. The polling body said all central force and state police personnel will have to be deployed by April 20 for the first phase of the elections.
