Kolkata police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakraborty today said it would not be possible to provide adequate security to Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket teams during Lok Sabha polls in here.

The police commissioner had a meeting with the Red Chillies Entertainment joint-owner Jay Mehta and the Kolkata Knight Riders officials at the Writer’s Building this afternoon.

“I have requested the Knight Riders representatives to postpone or change the dates of matches to be held here at the Eden Gardens during the Lok Sabha polls.

“It won’t be possible for us to provide them adequate security at that time,” Chakraborty told reporters after the meeting.

The Lok Sabha poll dates for West Bengal are April 30, May 7 and May 13.

“The IPL matches here are starting from April 11. All the political parties will be doing their poll campaigning during that time. Then the Knight Riders match on May 13 clashes with the polling day for Kolkata.

“Also, there are two matches in between April 30 and May 7. It doesn’t matter that polls on these days will be conducted outside Kolkata. City police personnel are also deployed in the districts during polls,” Chakraborty said.

“The poll-time is not ideal for IPL matches. So, it is advisable that the three match dates be changed,” he added.

The KKR representatives have agreed to change the dates.

The police commissioner also said that this time they have to be extra cautious following the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore.

“After the Lahore incident we cannot take any chances. There will be multi-layered security checks.

“We are also trying to convince the concerned authority to sell match tickets online to avoid scuffles outside the ticket counters,” Chakraborty said.

State home secretary Ardhendu Sen concurs. “Hosting IPL matches on the poll dates is out of question.

“As far as the security arrangements for the other matches, it would be up to the police commissioner to decide on the number of security personnel to be deployed.”

Meanwhile, in a statement the IPL commissioner Lalit Modi said: “The Indian Premier League is working on the schedule to ensure that there is no clash of IPL matches with the election dates.

“The IPL is fully cognizant of the importance of general elections in a country such as ours. We will go a step further to ensure that there will be no games 24 to 48 hours prior to the polling dates across all the nine match venues in the country.