'No CAPF to stop miscreants, we watched helplessly': Poll officials

"Only a handful of voters were allowed to exercise their franchise at the polling booth where I was deployed as a polling officer. Supporters of a particular party stamped the ballot papers...we watched everything helplessly"

Forty-year-old Subir Das, a school teacher who served as a polling officer in Murshidabad district in south West Bengal during the panchayat elections on Saturday, was among several officials who complained of malpractices like booth capturing and damaging of ballot boxes, as political parties spread fear through violence and arson to keep voters and polling agents of rivals at bay.

"There were no Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel around to stop the miscreants. We watched everything helplessly," Das, who refused to identify the political party and the designated number of the polling booth where the alleged malpractices took place, said.

He, however, said that the booth was located in Kandi subdivision of the district.

State government employees, including teachers from state-run schools, are usually deployed as polling officers during every election.

In north Bengal, 51-year-old Parag Biswas, an English teacher at a high school, was deployed as a presiding officer of a booth at a primary school in Jalpaiguri sadar community block.