NEW DELHI: Even as the election scene hots up in Chhattisgarh, Maoists have started issuing threats to voters in villages of Bastar and Bijapur, asking them to stay away from polling or face dire consequences like death and injury. According to Union home ministry sources, Naxalites have been going around villages and distributing pamphlets in their strongholds of south Chhattisgarh, specifically instructing people not to vote.
A senior ministry official said they have threatened to “dismember the inked finger” or even “kill” those who “dare to vote”.
Incidentally, when contacted, senior Election Commission (EC) officials ruled out any specific and serious threat to the villagers, stating the enough security forces were being deployed for the first phase of polling in the state on November 11, covering only the Maoist-infested constituencies.
According to MHA sources, as many as 40,000 additional central paramilitary forces will be deployed for the assembly poll in Chhattisgarh, over and above the 27,000 troops already stationed there for counter-Naxalite duties.
A Chhattisgarh government official, while confirming that Naxalites had been threatening that “any finger found marked with indelible ink mark would be cut off”, said such threats were routinely issued even in the earlier elections in the state.
“However, people have consistently defied Naxalite threats and poll boycott diktats … with the result that voter turnouts in the recent polls have ranged from 39 per cent in the Naxalite-hit constituencies to over 60% in the rest of the state,” the official said adding that polling will not be affected by the latest threats as long as requisite security arrangements were in place.
The two-phased elections to 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly will be held on November 11 and 19.
CPI (Maoist) aims to overthrow the existing democratic structure, with violence as their primary weapon and the Front Organizations and Strategic United Fronts as secondary weapons, and plan to usher in so called “New Democratic Revolution”.