India, the world’s largest democracy, will begin voting on April 16 (Thursday) until May 13 in phases to usher in a new government in the midst of heightened security concerns.
With violence anticipated during election and terror threat looming large, the Election Commission reviewed the security preparedness for the elections — beginning with the naxal-infested areas — with the Ministry of Home Affairs.
With 543 seats up for grabs, the first phase takes place in the communist-ruled southern state of Kerala, parts of Kashmir, East where Maoist rebels are increasingly active and in the remote northeast near India’s borders with Bangladesh, Myanmar and China.
The Commission had put all the naxal areas in the very first phase of elections. The CPI (Maoist) and other naxal groups, as part of their agenda to prevent democratic and development processes, have been propagating boycott of elections.
Keeping in view such possibilities, the Government of India has alerted all the states to take firm measures to prevent such activities and, in close coordination with the Election Commission, a substantial number of central para military forces have been deployed to assist the state governments.
Forces deployed
The forces deployed, together with the state police, are taking pro-active measures by way of intensified patrolling, etc., in the affected areas. As a result of pro-active thrust of the security forces, particularly in the remote areas, there have been large number of recoveries of explosives, landmines and IEDs, apprehensions of naxal elements, and a series of encounters have taken place, particularly in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa, in the recent days.
The government is also sharing detailed inputs with the concerned authorities of the state governments from time to time, and is maintaining close and continuous contact and coordination with them.
Apart from the deployment of central para military forces, assistance is also being provided to the state governments for logistics and operational support by way of deployment of helicopters in the naxal affected areas. The state governments have also been urged to take measures for boosting the confidence of the electorate.
The elections are being spread out over a month because of the gigantic exercise of setting up 800,000 polling booths for the 714 million eligible voters of India’s 1.1 billion people, or more than twice the population of the United States, and rotating six million election staff and security forces.
