Kolkata: In a first-of-its-kind exercise in a poll-bound state, the chiefs of all Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) held a high-level meeting in Kolkata’s Science City to review the security situation and deployment of nearly 2 lakh personnel during the two-phase assembly polls in Bengal. Unit chiefs across Bengal attended the meeting. The auditorium was chock-a-block.The Election Commission will deploy 2,407 companies of central forces for the two phases, on April 23 and April 29. The 152 constituencies voting in phase-I are spread across 16 districts.This year, Bengal will see the highest deployment of central forces in its history. For the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Bengal had 900 CAPF companies to manage the seven-phase polls, while around 725 CAPF companies were deployed across eight phases in the 2021 assembly elections.In comparison, in J&K, nearly 900 CAPF companies were deployed during the 2024 assembly elections, the first held in a decade. During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, approximately 635 CAPF companies were stationed there.The meeting on Saturday was followed by a “landmark” joint leadership summit at the CRPF office in Salt Lake. There, CAPF’s director generals, along with top officers of the West Bengal Police, decided to establish an “integrated security grid” to “handle potential disruptors in coordination with local law enforcement”, an official said.A senior CAPF officer told PTI that this was “an unprecedented meeting held in a poll-bound state by CAPF chiefs”. A joint meeting of CAPF DGs has never been held during any assembly poll in the past.“Our mission in Bengal transcends routine security. It is about safeguarding the sanctity of the ballot. To the personnel on the ground, my message is clear: You are the guardians of democracy. We must function not as individual units, but as ‘One Election Force’ — cohesive, disciplined and technologically adept,” said CISF DG Praveer Ranjan.
