Polls 8212; North Block doing jugglery for forces

NEW DELHI, JUNE 25: Senior North Block officials, led by Home Secretary Kamal Pandey, who on Thursday held a meeting with Chief Election ...

NEW DELHI, JUNE 25: Senior North Block officials, led by Home Secretary Kamal Pandey, who on Thursday held a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner CEC M S Gill and assured him of academic security umbrella for the next general election, are, in fact, in a somewhat peculiar position. Gill8217;s assertion immediately after the meeting that elections would be held on time, by October 20, did little to put them at ease.

North Block8217;s uneasiness is understandable on two counts. The obvious dampener is that the Army in Jamp;K, which till recently was deployed inside the state but has now been pushed closer to the Line of Control, has been replenished by the CRPF. As a result, not many of the existing 120 companies of the CRPF can be made available for election duty. It would be possible only after a major chunk is pulled out of the state.

Secondly, and much more inconspicuous, is the fact that the Union Home Ministry has itself issued a directive to states to remain alert to any ISI designs. Thus wouldautomatically necessitate keeping paramilitary forces there in a state of readiness. Getting paramilitary forces for poll duty would thus be doubly difficult.

According to a senior Home Ministry official, they could cross the hurdle by raising more battalions of the CRPF. But this is easier said than done. As he explained, 8220;Raising a battalion is a time-consuming exercise which takes weeks, at times months. Though it8217;s a continuing process, it is not often that you do it specifically for seeing through elections. After all, the last time such a situation could have occurred would have been in 1971 after the Indo-Pak war8221;.

Besides Special Secretary Internal Security Nikhil Kumar, a few other ministry officials accompanied Pandey to Gill. The meeting was also attended by Election Commissioners G V G Krishnamurthy and J M Lyndoh. Later in the day, Pandey discussed the matter with other officials.

Apart from the CRPF, the mainstay of paramilitary outfits, the services of the CISF, BSF and even ITBPwould reportedly be utilised for the elections.

Gill told mediapersons after the meeting that Kargil developments would not affect the poll schedule. 8220;The situation in Jammu amp; Kashmir,8221; he said, 8220;does create problems for us. But we will devise ways to overcome this situation and evolve a satisfactory arrangement for holding of fair and peaceful elections8230; The Indian democracy and Constitutional structure are far too strong to be kept off balance by such incidents or specific problems8221;.

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He added that they were confident of assistance from the Home Ministry and that 8220;the Commission will be able to fulfill its Constitutional role to find a new Lok Sabha in good time by October 20.8221;

Pandey, however, admitted that there would be some difficulty in securing availability of security personnel, though he added in the same breath that it would be overcome. To a question, he replied: 8220;We will have some difficulty due to shortage of troops because of problems in other parts, but we are sure it will beovercome8221;.