Anil Goswami meets West Bengal governor, stays mum on poll security arrangements

KOLKATA: Union home ministry's officer-on-special duty (OSD) Anil Goswami on Thursday met West Bengal governor MK Narayanan at Raj Bhavan and held talks with him for about an hour. Both Goswami and the government refused to talk to the media over the issues which they had discussed.

Goswami will meet the state's chief secretary Sanjoy Mitra and home secretary Basudeb Banerjee at the administrative headquarters in Writers' Building on Friday morning.

Goswami's visit to Kolkata is significant as the state government and the State Election Commission are still in dispute over deployment of central forces for the July panchayat elections in West Bengal. It is learnt that the issue of deployment of central forces will come up during the OSD's meeting with senior bureaucrats at Writers' Buildings on Friday.

The tussle between the state government and State Election Commission over force deployment is still on and the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday had instructed the state government to offer their explanation over the issue by Friday.

The high court will hear the case filed by the Election Commission on Monday. The State Election Commission had moved the high court seeking its help to know from the state government details about force deployment for the panchayat elections and the high court's instruction to the state government came in response to the commission's appeal.

A senior home department official, however, pointed out that the issue of the country's internal security might also come up during Friday's meeting in view of the recent Maoist attack in Chhatishgarh.

West Bengal was also a Maoist-infested state and recent reports indicated that the red ultras were making frantic efforts to sneak into Jangalmahal, their stronghold about two years ago.