The political parties should have to inform about the tour schedules and other programmes of their leaders to the district administration and the Superintendent of Police well in advance during the campaigning period for the forthcoming Assembly polls in the insurgency-infested Dantewada district.
In the aftermath of the Jeeram Ghati massacre by Maoists of top State-level Congress leaders and others in the restive Bastar region on May 25 this year, the Election Commission has issued special directives to the district administration and the police machinery in the insurgency affected regions to take extra care while making security arrangements for the ensuing Assembly polls, official sources here informed.
The Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath during a review of the poll preparations in Chhattisgarh last month had categorically told the district collectors that elaborate security arrangements must be in place well before the representatives of political parties start campaigning in the Bastar region. He had also told the district collectors that sufficient battalions of para military forces would be available to ensure violence free polls in Bastar region.
Elaborate security arrangements are being made by the district administration as per the orders of the Election Commission of India to ensure fair and violence free polls in the district, sources stated. A meeting had already been held by the Dantewada SP Narendra Khare with the representatives of the political parties in the district in which it was informed that elaborate security arrangements are being made in the district.
Khare also urged the political parties not to be negligent by not informing the police in advance about their tour schedules and other programmes in the district. ‘This (Dantewada district) is not a normal region and has many highly sensitive pockets in the Assembly segment. If any public meeting is to be held or a tour programme , then the police needs to be informed well in advance’, he said.
Khare also urged the leaders of political parties not to hold public meetings of two political parties in a single place in the district.