Bengal SEC rubbishes BSF charges, says info of sensitive booths shared

West Bengal State Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha on Tuesday rubbished the Border Security Force's allegations that the state poll panel has not responded to its letters seeking details of sensitive booths and said that district-wise details were shared during several meetings with the force.

The SEC claimed that BSF could not provide central forces to more than 10,000 booths.

"This (BSF's claim) is a story. I had said earlier also that they had sought a list of sensitive booths. We had held several meetings with them and all is in the record. We had provided them with the list of district-wise sensitive booths.

"They had no deployment plan for sensitive booths. They had only mentioned that sensitive booths will be provided forces first before they are sent to other booths. We had told them that deployment of central forces should be done after talking to the DMs and the SPs," Sinha said.

The SEC questioned that if the BSF were not provided with the information about the sensitive booths then how had they assigned central forces to them?

"And that has actually happened. If you (BSF) had no clue about sensitive booths then how could you provide central forces there?" Sinha asked.

BSF Deputy Inspector General (DIG), S S Guleria said, "We had written several letters to SEC since July 5, seeking details of sensitive booths, but we received no reply"

Sinha said the state poll panel on Tuesday received two letters from the BSF in this connection.

The Union ministry of home affairs informed the SEC on Monday that the Central forces will be staying in the state for another 10 days, he said, adding that the polling for the state panchayat was more or less held peacefully.

On the number of deaths during the election process, Sinha said that they had a record of 10 deaths while they were still waiting for the police to share details on the matter.

"The police have confirmed to us that 10 people died on the polling day. Though we have the data on the deaths during the entire process, at the moment I do not have the list," he said.

Media reports suggest that 15 people have died in several incidents of violence on the polling day.