Most of the applications received are from the ruling CPM. This is not only hampering the poll process, but district officials are also hard pressed to build a strength of necessary personnel to conduct the polls.

“We are having a tough time. Letters from the political parties have been flooding our district office since last week. They are submitting a list of names of people who should be exempted from poll duty. We have directed the district officials to be strict. Apart from six personnel each in 76,000 booths, which comes to 2,82,000, we need additional people for emergency duties,” said S N Roychoudhury, secretary of State Election Commission.

But political parties have their own contention. Anil Bose, District Secretariat member of the CPM, said: “Generally, the state election commission recruits teachers of primary and secondary schools, many of whom are our party members and workers. There are so many candidates and we need polling agents in the booths. We prefer educated men as polling agents and therefore teachers and professionals are given priority.”

“It is a political necessity and this happens every time we have polls. It is only logical that we ask the officials to exempt such people from commission’s poll duty to attend our poll duty,” he added.

According to sources, in various districts, political parties have sought exemptions of around 600 to 700 persons from poll duty, putting a dent in the strength of poll personnel.

The district officials are having a hard time replacing the personnel, asserting duties and providing them training. Vinod Kumar, District Magistrate of Hooghly, said:

“The pressure is making our lives difficult. We are already very busy with the poll process and constant letters and discussions with political parties are eating up our vital time.”

“First we set a meeting with all political parties on April 15, then we had to extend it to April 18. They are asking hundreds of personnel to be relieved from poll duty. How can we leave them all?” he added.

The district magistrate of Birbhum, T K Som has already exempted around 300 personnel following requests from political parties.

“We have somehow arranged for replace-ments and are training them. We have told them that we cannot entertain any more requests and not at this stage, when the personnel have been trained and allotted booths,” said Som.

According to sources, the state election commission had initially targeted to deploy 3,25,000 people for the panchayat polls but it could gather only 3,15,000 for the poll duty.