West Bengal authorities beef up security for Mamata Banerjee's 'jatra utsav'; officials asked to carry voter IDs

Days after the breach in the security during West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's event on February 22, the state authorities are placing stringent security measures for the VVIPs at Barasat in North 24 Parganas district on Tuesday where she will be inaugurating 'jatra utsav'.

In addition to the extra layer of security cordon for Banerjee, a stern rule has been imposed for getting entry to the administrative meeting which she would be chairing. Highly-placed administrative sources said that elected representatives who would be attending the meeting would have to, in addition to security passes issued by the police, carry their voter IDs as well. All the MLAs, municipal chairpersons, panchayat samiti presidents and zila parishad members have been pre-informed about the new security arrangement. 

A senior district administrative official said that even the reputed faces have been strictly asked to carry their voters' ID to avoid any inconvenience. Citing a reason for carrying voters' ID he said that the temporary security passes which are issued ahead of these programmes dont carry photographs of the person so a person can easily enter the venue with someone else's pass. Thus to tally the pass along with a photo ID, the notification has been issued.

Although many public representatives of the party said that they had to hunt for their voters' ID after it had been made mandatory but all of them agreed that it was a necessary step taken for maintaining safety of the CM.

The chief minister will inaugurate 'jatra utsav' on Tuesday at 3 pm at Kachari Maidan of Barasat. Before that she would conduct the administrative meeting at Barasat's Rabindra Bhavan. Several CCTV cameras have been installed and drone cameras will also be used in security surveillance. The programmes would be carried out amidst heavy police posting. Added security measures have also been taken at bordering areas of the district.

On February 22, two women breached the three-tier security system of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and one of them managed to climb up the stage while Mamata was delivering her speech at an event in Hemtabad, North Dinajpore.