A senior officer in charge of the central forces deployed for the panchayat elections on Friday refused to deploy less than four jawans in one place because of concern over the security of the troops.

The decision of the IG, BSF, who is the force coordinator, means that most of over 61,000 booths in the state will not be guarded by paramilitary personnel.

“The IG, BSF, informed the State Election Commission that none of the central forces agreed to deploy less than four jawans in one place as they felt it would be risky for the personnel given the political situation in the state. A detailed deployment plan was sent by the IG this morning and it was approved by the commission,” said a senior bureaucrat.

The deployment plan was drawn up keeping in mind polling premises, not polling booths. A polling premise usually has multiple booths.

According to the plan, half a section of force (four jawans) will be deployed on some single booth and two-booth premises and one section of force (eight jawans) will be deployed on the premises comprising three and four booths.

The premises that have five and six booths will be guarded by one-and-a-half sections of central forces while premises with seven or more booths will have two sections of central force.

A panel official hassaid that as there are about 65,000 effective jawans of central forces available, it isnot feasible to deploy paramilitary personnel at each booth as the deployment plan is based on multiples of half-a-section.

“As at least four jawans have to be deployed in a place, it was decided that the plan would be prepared to guard the maximum number of premises and the priority would be given to the premises that house sensitive booths,” said the official.

Sources have said the state has a total of 44,382 premises where 61,000-odd booths will be housed. Of them, 29,940 are single booth premises and 12,320 premises have two booths each. There are 1,594 premises with three booths each and 433 premises have four booths each. The remaining 95 booths have five or more booths.

“With the available strength, we can deploy central forces on about 15,000 premises. Now, the DMs and SPs have to decide which the most sensitive premises are and use central forces accordingly,” said a senior official.

The allotted forces could not reach districts on Friday when the polling officersarrived at booths after collecting ballot boxes and ballot papers from the distribution centres.

For example, in Hooghly only 12 out of 48 companies allotted for the district reached by Friday afternoon.

The situation was almost the same in all the districts.

In Hooghly’s Arambagh, several presiding officers refused to accept ballot boxes and ballot papers as no security personnel was around.