Taking lessons from the Naxal attack on Thursday, the State police have deployed two companies of security forces to avoid any untoward incident during the re-poll being done on the two polling stations — 100 and 101 of Asna village at Shikaripara in Dumka tomorrow.
The polled EVMs were destroyed in a Naxal attack after the rebels triggered a landmine blast blowing the vehicle carrying the EVMs and polling party while they were returning to Shikaripara after conducting the polls.
“There will be no dearth of security forces and two companies have been deployed for the re-poll in Dumka,” said DGP Rajiv Kumar. According to Kumar, the district administration has been asked to follow the guidelines strictly during the polls. The forces have been asked to completely sanitize the area, added Kumar. Kumar, however, said that the strategy will be same as followed during the polls in the three phases during the elections as it proved to be quite efficient. The incident of Shikaripara, according to the DGP, was a result of security lapse on the part of the district administration which could have been avoided, if the Standard Operating Procedure would have been followed.
The Election Commission is also keeping a close vigil at Shikaripara re-poll and has directed the state police to beef up the security taking all preventive measures. “We have asked administration to deploy adequate number of security forces during the polls on Monday,” said Chief Electoral Officer PK Jajoria.
According to Jajoria, a total of 1648 voters — 832 males and 816 females will be going for re-poll on the two polling stations.