Dearth of forces may extend poll period

The elections for 15th Lok Sabha may be extended beyond four to five phases as the Election Commission and Home Ministry have failed to reach an agreement on number of security forces deployed for each phase, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 24, 2009, 23:02:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The elections for 15th Lok Sabha may be extended beyond four to five phases as the Election Commission and Home Ministry have failed to reach an agreement on number of security forces deployed for each phase.

Sources said the Commission officials were asking for at least the same number of security forces from the Central government as were deployed in 2004 general elections. Over 750 companies were deployed in the 2004 elections.

However, the Home Ministry — whose officials led by secretary Madhukar Gupta met the three elections commissioners on Wednesday — has expressed the government’s inability to spare the forces as sought by the Commission.

Sources in the Commission said heightened security threat after the Mumbai terror attacks, expansion of Naxal areas since 2004 elections and insurgency-related issues in J&K and North-East were cited as major reasons for not been able to provide adequate security forces for elections.

Around 100 seats will be going to polls in each phase to be held in April-May this year. But exact dates for elections are expected to be announced within a week after the Commission and Home ministry officials hold next round of negotiations to iron out the differences.

“We have had a detailed discussion about the force requirement. So, now it’s up to the Election Commission,” said Gupta, who was accompanied by Special Secretary (Internal Security) Raman Shrivastav on Tuesday.

The Commission also held discussions with Defence secretary Vijay Singh to find whether armed forces can spare personnel for the polls.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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