With campaigning for the first phase of Assembly elections in West Bengal coming to an end on Saturday evening, the stage is set for one of the most crucial electoral battles in the State's history between the Left Front and the Congress-Trinamool Congress combine.
The Election Commission has made arrangements for heavy deployment of security forces in all six districts going to the polls in the first phase on Monday to ensure free, fair and peaceful elections. Chief Electoral Officer Sunil Gupta said here that all the inter-State as well as international borders along the districts would be sealed from Sunday and strict vigil would be kept at the borders.
The sealing of borders has become all the more important since the poll-bound districts share borders with both neighbouring States and countries.
Holding opinion polls will remain prohibited from 5 p.m. on Saturday till 5 p.m. on April 18. The EC has also decided to scrap photo-affixed voter slips from the list of 14 alternative identity documents that can be produced before voting in case a voter has not been issued the Elector's Photo Identity Card.
Mr. Gupta said the EC had opened a control room for the first phase of elections at the CEO's office to directly receive complaints about any malpractices as well as to coordinate with officials posted in the six districts.
According to a senior official of the West Bengal Election Commission, 1,800 polling booths have been identified as “critical” in the first phase. Most of them have a background of over 75 per cent polling, with a single candidate polling 75 per cent or more votes.
The EC has already spelt out special monitoring measures for the “critical” booths. These include deployment of additional Central security personnel both in the booth and on its premises and using web-casting and digital cameras to keep a check on the happenings in the booth.
The Election Commission has also found 300 “vulnerable” persons during its vulnerability mapping exercise that attempted to locate persons who felt intimidated to cast their votes or were influenced by any person or persons irrespective of political parties.
Mr. Gupta said returning officers would check on the 300 persons on the day of polling to find out whether they still felt intimidated, and if so, they would assist them in reaching the booths to vote.
