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Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 20
Officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) revealed that a decision to conduct simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir was deferred as it was not possible to accede to the demand of more than 70,000 paramilitary troops by the state administration.
In view of the high demand for Central forces in other parts of the country for conducting peaceful Lok Sabha election, the state administration’s demand for about 717 companies (each of them comprise 100 men) of paramilitary forces could not be met, the officials said, adding that a decision of holding the Assembly election could be taken after the parliamentary poll.
The MHA and state administration, which is currently under President’s rule, had apprised the Election Commission of the security situation in J&K when a team of the poll panel had visited the state on March 4 and 5.
The EC team had gone there for assessing the situation and checking poll preparedness in the wake of
the February 14 terror strike in Pulwama in which 40 CRPF men were killed.
Higher deployment of forces may be necessitated during the poll as they have to secure the routes to be taken by the candidates for campaign, the venue of rallies, besides the security of candidates itself.
During the 2014 poll, a little more than 10,000 polling stations were set up, while the EC has announced the number will be 11,316 this time, requiring additional forces to secure them.
While 77 candidates were in the fray for the six Lok Sabha seats in 2014, 831 fought the state elections a few months later to elect 87 MLAs.
In the 2014 Assembly elections, a total of 428 companies of paramilitary forces were deployed and 47 were managed from the existing counter-insurgency grid, another official said.
During the last parliamentary election, the security situation had improved considerably and about 300 companies were deployed of which 126 were drawn from the counter-insurgency grid.
Admn sought deployment of over 70,000 men
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