Kathmandu, January 25: Nepal's government has announced a special security plan for the historic election in April, the first national polls in almost nine years, but has ruled out deploying the army.
Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula gave details of the security arrangements to a parliamentary team overseeing the April 10 constituent assembly election that is expected to end Nepal's 239-year dynasty of Shah kings and finally enable the people of Nepal to write their own constitution.

"Nepal Army will stay in their barracks and the Maoists' People's Liberation Army will stay in their cantonments," Sitaula told legislators Thursday. "The army can be deployed only when the seven ruling parties take a joint decision to that effect."

For the nation's first constituent assembly election, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's government will mobilise a record 135,000 security personnel.

Besides 40,000 members of Nepal Police and 22,000 personnel from Armed Police Forces, the government will also recruit 69,700 "temporary security personnel" who would be given 15 days' training ahead of the polls. There will be security cordons for the polling booths while each constituency will have two mobile patrols.

With the volatile Terai adjoining the Indian border being the government's Achilles heel, security measures have been beefed up for the plains. Eight of the most turbulent Terai districts would have additional security measures as well as four more districts in the north and east. Helicopters would be kept ready in the five regions as well as the capital.

Sitaula ruled out deploying cadres of any political party, despite an earlier wish expressed by the Maoists to have its controversial youth wing, the Young Communist League, be part of the poll security arrangements.

The country will have to rustle up an additional budget of Nepali Rs.2 billion for the polls since they could not be held in November last year despite the election commission having completed all necessary arrangements.

The election was postponed once in June 2007 as violence flared up in the Terai, and once again in November due to the Maoists quitting the government and announcing their opposition to the election for which they had fought a 10-year war.

Now, though the communist party has returned to the ruling alliance and has pledged to take part in the polls, the Terai continues to be stormy.

Former US president Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center has been invited by Nepal to observe the election, has repeatedly asked for enforcement of law and order in the Terai. The UN and the European Union share his concerns.

In addition to over a dozen armed groups spreading terror, two new fronts have said they would oppose the polls if the government failed to heed their demands.

The newly formed Terai Madhesh Loktantrik Party, formed of former ministers and lawmakers, turned down a call by the government to start talks from Friday.

A second alliance, comprising Sadbhavana Party, a new outfit floated by a disgruntled former minister, and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, one of the strongest groups in the plains, is also ready to oppose the election in the plains if the government doesn't address their demands before.

However, Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel, who is also the prime minister's deputy, said that though the situation was challenging, the government took heart from the fact that it had held a general election almost nine years ago despite the Maoists having started their armed struggle.