Centre, EC assess poll security requirements

With Lok Sabha elections drawing near, the Union Home Ministry and the Election Commission are engaged in an exercise to work out requirement and deployment of paramilitary personnel to ensure free and fair polls.
    
While first round of assessment was made last week when Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta and Special Secretary (Internal Security) Raman Srivastava met the full commission, more meetings will be held soon to decide the number of phases to facilitate movement of troops.
    
A senior Home Ministry official told PTI that the force requirement and availability was being worked out to ensure that the marathon exercise some time in April-May passed off peacefully.
    
A working group has already been entrusted with the task of working out the details of force requirement depending on
threat perception and sensitivity of a particular area and the number of paramilitary personnel which could be deployed for the purpose of peaceful polling.
    
The Union Home Secretary said force was not a constraint and no stone

would be left unturned to maintain law and order during elections.
    
Sources said the Home Ministry was more concerned over the Naxal-prone areas in about a dozen states, the insurgency-hit Northeastern region and states having porous international borders and coastline.

Home Ministry sources said with about 75,000 para-military personnel who could be spared for the Lok Sabha polls, the general elections could be staggered over four to five phases for optimum utilisation of security men.
    
Naxalite infested areas would need additional reinforcement to enable maximum booth level coverage, they said.
    
Big states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are likely to have three or more phases of polling.
    
The 2004 Lok Sabha elections were spread over four phases.
    
The Home Ministry has already asked states with international borders to maintain strict vigil along the boundary lines to prevent any anti-social element from sneaking into the country and vitiating the poll atmosphere.