BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s visit to the Naxal-hit areas of the State, including Chatra, Palamu, Koderma and Gumla has thrown a major challenge for both the police as well as the party workers.
Modi during his poll campaign in Jharkhand is scheduled to address public meetings at Chatra and Gumla on March 27 in support of BJP candidate Sunil Singh and Sudarshan Bhagat respectively. Again on April 2, he will be attending the rallies at Palamu and Koderma. All four places are said to be stronghold of extremists.
No wonder, the police, facing double challenges both from CPI (Maoists) as well as terror outfits, have already started taking precautionary measures to avoid any untoward incident during his visit.
“Definitely it is a big challenge for us and we have already started preparing for it. There will be fool-proof security arrangement for his rally as we will be following all the standard operating procedures during the Modi’s visit to Chatra,” said Chatra SP Prashant Kumar Karn.
“We are fully prepared for it for his rally and an IG rank officer Khurshid Ahmed is also arriving to review the security for Modi’s visit to Jharkhand,” said a senior police official.
Modi’s security is also a major cause of concern for the BJP party workers who are banking upon the assurance given by the Election Commission to provide fool proof security to Modi during his poll campaign.
“We are also concerned, but the Election Commission has directed the MHA for making adequate arrangements for his security. Some changes have also been done in Modi’s security pattern yesterday after some intelligence inputs of the possibility of Modi being targeted by the terrorist outfits,” said Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Ajay Maroo.
CPI (Maoists) by releasing a press release has called Jharkhand bandh on March 27-28 against the police atrocities on the poor villages in the name of anti-Naxal operations.
As per a recent circular issued by the Union Home Ministry asking all Maoist-hit states to step up anti-Naxal operations, Jharkhand police were already in a “mission mode” with arrests of rebels and recovery of weapons and explosives among others, a senior police officer said.