Description

Unable to mobilize enough police forces from other states to man 'sensitive' booths in the panchayat polls, the Mamata Banerjee government seems willing to tinker with the "sensitivity" parameter to reduce the number of such booths and manage with its own police and the 50,000-odd armed cops arranged from other states.

In the first phase — where the government wants to club nine Trinamool-dominated districts — 80% of the 36,228 booths have been marked 'sensitive' by the government itself. The state is short of 450 companies of forces and is desperate to scale down the number of sensitive booths, say sources.