A six-member team of special observers of the Election Commission (EC) led by chief electoral of Bihar Sudhir Kumar Rakesh will start visiting the districts of Bengal from Monday to make a first-hand assessment of the law and order situation in the state before the coming Assembly polls. During its six-day visit to the state, the team would assess the ground reality in the south Bengal districts. Meanwhile, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat termed the decision of the EC to send such a team as an “unprecedented” one.
“The EC has appointed me as the head of the team. We will visit many places in the state and submit our report to the EC,” Mr Rakesh said, after he landed at the Kolkata airport on Sunday. The other members of the team are Zaki Ahmed and P.R.K. Naidu (both DIG, NCRB), Jharkhand’s ADG D.K. Pandey, Andhra Pradesh DIG B. Shivadhar Reddy and Orissa DIG P.S. Ranpise. Besides, Mr Rakesh, the other members of the team are senior IPS officers and this is for the first time that any such high-level team is visiting a state ahead of the Assembly polls to make an independent assessment on the law and order situation.
Describing this development as an “unprecedented” one, Mr Karat said: “We don’t think that it will contribute to the capacity of the state administration to organise free and fair elections and maintain law and order. In no other state, outside police officers have been sent before elections. We hope to talk to EC why they have taken this step at this juncture.”
According to sources familiar to the development, the EC feels that conducting a free, fair and peaceful election in West Bengal in wake of the deteriorating law and order situation and increasing political violence in the state, is the toughest job among holding the Assembly elections in Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Puducherry.