Security forces spread to safeguard the biggest polling exercise in the world
New Delhi: As more than one lakh troops of the CRPF and other Central armed police forces spread themselves thin to successfully make way for the biggest polling exercise in the world, this election season has brought winds of change to the toiling life of the soldiers who has quietly trudged every election summer last sixty years.
Speaking to this newspaper, CRPF DG Dilip Trivedi tells how this election journey is different for the less talked about jawan on a day when the Central forces complete the mammoth exercise of deployment across 29 states on Wednesday.
From the traditional and cumbersome cooking on logs of wood as they parked their bogies off railway tracks to cook khichdi, for the first time, the jawans are being served packed food boxes of the Indian Railways IRCTC at the stations where the trains halt .
For the CRPF, this is a small beginning in the many “firsts” to the election journey of its troops. To beat the five-yearly pain of the jawan who did not know which is his next halt during elections, this time round a detailed plan has been worked out by the forces in consultation with the EC and home ministry where each company knows its poll schedule allowing the jawans to prepare in advance, stock appropriate clothing, inform families and break free from a life of uncertainty.
Unique Identity Number has been provided to each Central Armed Police Forces company, on the move to help the district administration identify them and prepare for their arrival and subsequent deployment.
The company commanders for the first time have been given mobile phones with numbers made available to the concerned state authorities for quick liaison, the expenses of which will be borne by the forces.
In the deep Maoist interiors where the threat is very high, care has been taken to undergo the polling process during the moon-lit fortnight and not the dark fortnight.
The gun-wielding jawan will also cast his vote through postal ballot ? care of which is being taken by Central forces and the EC.
