Over 400 polling parties still in interior of Naxal areas

     Raipur, November 15, 2008: About 430 polling parties are still in interior areas of Bastar region today and have failed to return to their base after conducting polls yesterday for Chhattisgarh assembly, top officials said.

    In Kanker, Dantewada and Bijapur districts about 430 polling parties have yet to return to their base with the sealed Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), top official sources told ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com today.

     Currently about 23 battalions of security forces are also in the interior areas but they have been of little help to the polling parties and due to security threat police was very slowly reacting to the situation, they said.

     Election Commission has also expressed its displeasure over the attitude of the state police headquarters in dealing with the situation, they said.

     If police forces are unable to take out the polling parties from the interiors then who else would do that, the officials said adding the attitude of the central forces are also not very much different from the state police.