Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi has written Delhi Electoral Office to provide Home Guards to assist Delhi Police and officials in the proper security arrangement and ensure free and fair elections. “Our requirement works out to 19,000 Home Guards for the forthcoming lok Sabha elections in Delhi for deployment at polling booth, picket and patrolling duties. We have approximately 2,000 Delhi Home Guard personnel with all the districts of Delhi Police. Thus, 17,000 additional Home Guard needed on payment basis. For the Delhi Assembly polls in 2013, 15,000 Home Guards were hired from Haryana (4,000) and Uttar Pradesh (11,000). It is requested that appropriate directions may kindly be given to the chief secretaries of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab in this regard,” Bassi said, in the letter.
It may be noted that over 630 polling stations were declared as critical and hyper-critical during Delhi Assembly polls in December this last year. It is learnt that number of critical and hyper critical polling stations may increase during lok Sabha polls in Delhi on April 10. Keeping this sensitive aspect in mind, Delhi Police will have to pool in all its resources to maintain security and safety during General Elections in the national capital.
According to Bassi’s letter, new security components such as Personal Security Officers (PSOs) to election officers, PSOs to videography teams, static surveillance teams, flying squads, quick reaction teams have been introduced for the for the first time during the Delhi Assembly elections 2013 and the same components as per directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI) will be operational in forthcoming general elections to the lok Sabha 2014. “As such additional police personnel will be required to meet the demand. The number of election officers has also been increased and all of them including expenditure observers, assistance expenditure observers, assistant returning officers, district election officers and deputy district election officers will also be provide with personal security officers. Besides sensitive areas such as Jamia Nagar, Okhla, Seelampur, Tilak Vihar, and other re settlement colonies will need intensive patrolling. The number of available Delhi Home Guards is not enough. Therefore Delhi need to bring in Home Guards from other States for election duties,” the letter said.
It may be noted that during lok Sabha elections in 2009, the number of polling booths were 1,11,000 but it has increased to 11,763 in the Delhi Assembly polls 2013. It is expected that number of polling booths may further increase during lok Sabha polls due to increase in the number of voters in Delhi.