Here's why West Bengal sought additional forces from Odisha, Punjab, Telangana & AP

Kolkata: The West Bengal government has written to Odisha, Punjab, Telengana and Andhra Pradesh seeking forces for the May 14 single-phase panchayat election in the the state, a senior government official said today.

Four companies of security personnel were sought from each state for "full back up" to the existing force in the state, the official said.

Stressing that the government was doing everything for adequate arrangements for the election, the Director General of Police Surajit Kar Purkayastha had yesterday said that it had sought security forces from four to five states to manage the panchayat elections for which there would be 58,467 polling booths spread across the state.

In addition to around 46,000 personnel of the state police and 12,000 of the Kolkata Police, the state government would deploy close to 2,000 security personnel from the departments of excise, prison and forest to man the booths, official sources had said.