With the killing of 29 securitymen and seven civilians by Naxalites during Phase I and the day preceding the vote making it one of the bloodiest starts to an election in recent times,questions are being asked over the Election Commission wisdom of scheduling polls in almost all Naxal-affected areas in the first round. Sources have told The Indian Express that while deciding on the poll schedule,there was considerable debate on whether it would be possible to hold peaceful elections in the entire Naxal belt simultaneously,especially since North-Eastern states and parts of Jammu and Kashmir were also being clubbed in the same phase. It was pointed out that from the security point of view,it was a nightmare situation,especially after intelligence agencies had repeatedly warned that Naxalite groups were planning to strike in a big way to disrupt the election process. The Election Commission,however,was said to be in favour of conducting elections in these areas in one go considering the fact that they are geographically contiguous. But this decision resulted in the number of Central security forces in these areas being considerably lower than what was necessary to keep Naxalites out. Chhattisgarh is a classic example. During last years Assembly polls in the state which was held in two phases,300 companies of para-military forces were deployed,apart from the 80 that is permanently stationed there to fight Naxalites. But this time,instead of 300,only 85 companies could be made available for the entire state which went to polls in single phase. It was the same story in Jharkhand and Bihar,both of which received significantly lesser number of Central forces than what was needed or what was made available to them during the previous round of elections. The result: 20 jawans of CRPF and seven of BSF were killed in election violence. Five members of a polling party and two civilians the driver and conductor of a BSF bus blow up by a landmine were also killed. Never before have so many security personnel died during a single election. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election,security forces lost 18 men,four of them to illness and one in a road accident,during the entire exercise. In the last round of Assembly elections in November during which five states went to polls,only one CRPF jawan was killed in Chhattisgarh. With four rounds of polling still to go,and a repoll likely in some areas which went to vote in the first phase,there are fears that casualty figures will climb. Security experts have told The Indian Express that the best course of action would have been to go for a multi-phase election in the Naxal areas,like it is being done in Jammu and Kashmir which is scheduled to vote in all five phases. In a state like Chhattisgarh,a two-phase election,for example,would have meant that the 85 companies would have been deployed in only half of the state. These same companies could then have been moved to the other half in the next phase. It would have been less stressful for security forces as well because after being already overstretched in the first phase,they will now be sent to some other part of the country.
