Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: Police Attribute High Voter Turnout In Gadchiroli To Elaborate Security Arrangements

Naxal affected Gadchiroli district recorded 73.68 percent voter turnout in the assembly elections. The police have given the credit for this excellent turnout to the elaborate security arrangements that were made to ensure the voters come out without any fear.

According to the Superintendent of Police, Gadchiroli, Neelotpal, to ensure successful conduct of this election, over 16,000 security personnel had been deployed at polling stations across the district. This included forces from the Central Armed Police Forces/State Armed Police Forces and also outside assistance of manpower received from Nagpur City Police, Maharashtra Police Academy, Nashik and Police Training Center Nagpur. 500 Police Officers and men from various units, and an additional 700 Home guards from Gadchiroli were also deployed apart from officer and men of Gadchiroli Police and CAPF/SAPF. All the security personnel deployed for the election had received detailed training tailored to the needs of the election. In this Left Wing Extremism district, Central Armed Police Forces were deployed at 367 highly sensitive polling stations in the district.

"Additionally, Anti-Maoist operations were conducted in the district's highly sensitive pockets by 36 units of the C-60/CRPF-QAT/SAG/QRT squads. In addition, a drone team equipped with 130 state-of-the-art drones were deployed for aerial surveillance in the troubled pockets of the district and served as “eye in the sky” for forces on the ground. Furthermore, five anti-drone guns were deployed to counter any rogue drones operated by Maoists. During the election period, a road opening operation was implemented for approximately 750 km of the route used for traveling to and from the polling stations and Vehicle Mounted Deep Search Metal Detectors were used for this purpose. Along with this, 03 helicopters of the Indian Air Force and two helicopters of Indian Army were deployed to assist Gadchiroli Police for dropping EVM and polling personnel. Additionally, with help of two helicopters of Gadchiroli Police, a total of 07 helicopters transported poll workers to various sensitive and highly sensitive locations in Gadchiroli. Large-scale Anti-Maoist operations were done in the border areas of Gadchiroli district and across the States with help of adjoining districts of Telangana and Chhattisgarh," SP Neelotpal said.

"We heli-dropped polling staff to polling stations in the entire district. During the election period, since police personnel of the Gadchiroli Police were not able to cast their votes as they were deployed to ensure that election process is conducted peacefully, by means of postal ballot, a total of 2979 postal votes were casted by Gadchiroli Police personnel. Additionally, 170 surrendered Maoists exercised their right to vote in elections," he said.