‘75 paramilitary companies deployed for Arunachal Lok Sabha, Assembly polls’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Itanagar: The Election Commission of India has deployed 75 companies of Central Para Military Forces (CPMF) to conduct free and fair simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Arunachal Pradesh, a senior election official said here on Monday.

In addition to the CPMF companies, available police force in the state would also be deployed for election duties, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Pawan Kumar Sain told reporters.

He said, all the CPMF companies have been deployed in all the districts of the state and they have started area dominance exercises in various critical and vulnerable polling stations. The northeastern state will go to simultaneous polls in the first phase on April 19.

“Out of the total 2,226 polling stations in the state, 480 polling booths will fall under shadow areas, while 588 booths have been identified as critical and 443 as vulnerable,” the CEO said.

He added that for monitoring of the poll process, webcasting and enabling communications on a real-time environment (ENCORE) would be done in 750 polling stations through an online basis while, offline webcast facility would be available in 342 polling stations.

Sain added that the state election machinery has so far seized Rs 3,88,34,496 in cash from various districts and also seized 378 un-licensed arms.

“Out of 33,996 licensed arms in the state, people have deposited 2,400 arms in various police stations as of date and are in the process to deposit the rest licensed arms,” the CEO said. Sain added that to oversee expenditure of candidates during elections, one officer from the income tax department has been appointed in each district who would report to the commission on a daily basis.

Also Read: Arunachal: Training for presiding officers, polling officials underway in Naharlagun

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