With the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) planning to systematically disrupt the Parliamentary polls, the Union Home Ministry has categorised the districts into ‘A’ (hyper-sensitive), ‘B’ (moderately sensitive) and ‘C’ (less sensitive) on the basis of certain parameters and shared the information with the Election Commission.
The Ministry has asked the paramilitary and the State police forces to step up anti-Naxal operations, particularly in the ‘A’ category districts, to improve security environment and minimise any major threat to the electoral process.
The Centre has recommended the EC that election in the ‘A’ category districts should ideally be held in the first phase.“It is also proposed that the additional deployment in these districts should largely comprise CAPFs rather than State forces from non-lWE affected States, who do not have the requisite tactical orientation,” the Ministry said in an advisory to the Chief Secretaries of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Union Home Ministry has admitted that anti-Naxal operations during the last four to five months have not yielded results in terms attrition among the Maoist ranks.The window of opportunity for operations is available only in the month of February and March.
“Hence both the State forces/Central forces need to conduct result-oriented operations, failing which there can be major problems during the elections,” the advisory said.The Ministry has also advised the States that operations aimed at IED/anti-personnel mines should be carried out continuously.
The State Governments may declare good rewards to the public for information on IEDs.The States have also been advised to appoint a nodal officer at the State/district level to coordinate security for political personalities on the campaign trail.
The district level officer should have all the information of public meetings/movement of VIPs and candidates on a given day. Meetings may be held with political parties at the State/district level to coordinate security protocols.With communication between multiple forces proving to be a major challenge, the Ministry has advised the States to place all the security forces on one communication grid.