ITANAGAR, Jan 22: Arunachal Pradesh requires 60 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to conduct peaceful and successful elections in the state.
Chief Secretary Satya Gopal said this during a video conference with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India Sunil Arora from the CS’s conference hall here on Tuesday.
Informing the CEC of the latest status of the election preparedness in the state, the CS said “expenditure sensitive constituencies have also been identified, and measures will be taken to check illegalities.”
Gopal also submitted before the CEC specific challenges like foot march to far-flung polling stations, communication bottlenecks, and boundaries/borders with Assam and Myanmar, which he said are major hurdles to conducting free and fair elections.
To check infiltration and unwanted activities from the neighbouring state and Myanmar, the CS emphasized on strengthening surveillance on the Indo-Myanmar border and the boundaries with neighbouring Assam.
“Transfer-posting of officers and officials as per the directives of the ECI in both administrative and police departments have been taken into account,” the CS informed.
Gopal also committed to post sufficient administrative officers within the first week of February in districts with severe shortages of officers.
“Transfer of the very few left-out senior administrative and police officers from their home districts will be done immediately,” he said, and added that the proposal for appointment of election observers and nodal officers under various categories has also been sent to the ECI.
Arora sought weekly progress report on the election preparedness of the state.
DGP SBK Singh, Principal Home Secretary AC Verma, Chief Election Officer Kaling Tayeng, IGP Sunil Garg, DIG K Kaming, and Tax & Excise Link Commissioner NT Glow were also present during the video conference. (CSO)
