The Central Government has approved 11 additional companies of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) for maintaining law and order during lok Sabha election-2014 in Uttarakhand. A total of 56 CAPF companies will now be deployed in the State during the polls.
Earlier, the State police had sent a proposal to the Central Government seeking deployment of 59 companies of CAPF to prevent untoward incidents during election, said Additional Director General of Police (law and order) Ram Singh Meena on Tuesday. It should be mentioned here that in the last lok Sabha elections, the Central Government had deployed 49 companies of central forces in the State.
Meena said that the nomination process for lok Sabha election 2014 was completed peacefully in the State.In view of public rallies slated to be addressed by senior leaders of various political parties at different places in Uttarakhand, the district police heads have been directed to beef up security and initiate preventive measures for peaceful completion of parliamentary election.
As of now, a total of 461 out of 10,062 polling booths in Uttarakhand have been identified as ultra-sensitive and 732 polling booths have been marked sensitive.As per Election Commission of India’s guidelines, Central Force will be deployed at polling stations in inter-State border areas, problem areas, sensitive and ultra-sensitive polling stations, and EVM strong room apart from deployment of sufficient number of police force at each polling station in the State.
“The district police heads have already been directed to lower down the level of sensitiveness of polling booths categorised as sensitive or ultra sensitive and ensure that all possible steps are taken to ensure peaceful election,"he added.
DIG (law and order, crime), Police Headquarter SK Shukla said that to avoid untoward incidents at polling stations during lok Sabha elections, apart from deployment of 56 CAPF companies, around 21 companies of PAC, 13,011 constables, 11,247 home guards, 1,610 head constables, 1,282 sub inspectors, 108 inspectors and 40 gazetted officers will be deployed for peaceful conduct of election in the State.