Election Commission of India.
Chandigarh: A team of senior officials from the Election Commission of India held a meeting with senior officers of Haryana on Thursday to review the action taken on the directions issued to the authorities involved in the election process during its visit to the state last month.The meeting was held with the divisional commissioners, inspector generals of police, police commissioners, deputy commissioners, superintendents of police, general observers and police observers from 11 districts.
Haryana goes to polls on October 5.
According to an official statement, the team comprised of Deputy Election Commissioner Hirdesh Kumar and other officials.
The meeting was held in the presence of Haryana Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal.
According to the statement, a team of the Election Commission of India led by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar had earlier in August taken the review of the administrative, logistics, law and order, and election-related arrangements with the chief electoral officer and state police nodal officer.
The commission had directed to ensure the conduct of free and fair elections by maintaining good law and order situation, the statement said.
It had also stressed to maintain good health of the electoral roll with the removal of dead and shifted voters. Further, it directed to provide minimum assured facility at the polling booths along with conducive environment to encourage the voters turnout.
In Thursday's meeting, the Election Commission team emphasized the importance of ensuring that all polling stations are fully equipped with the necessary facilities.
The deputy election commissioner instructed the district commissioners-cum-district election officers and superintendents of police to personally inspect the polling stations to verify the availability of essential resources.
The Commission emphasised that the Voter Facilitation Booths should be set up by the booth level officers at each polling stations. Proper sitting arrangements have to be made to facilitate the voters standing in queues.
The team cited the need for webcasting from all polling stations.
For ensuring better monitoring, cameras of high resolution should be used and they should be positioned in a way that these cover the polling stations properly for effective surveillance. At the same time, the secrecy of voting should not be compromised, it said.
The police authorities briefed about the security arrangements for ensuring a good law and order situation.
The team expressed its satisfaction over the deployment of the central forces and other security arrangements. However, it stressed immediate action for better surveillance of the border areas in coordination with the police of the neighbouring states.
In another meeting with the enforcement agencies of Income Tax department, state police, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Directorate of Enforcement, Narcotics Control Bureau, Civil Aviation, Customs and other departments, the team noticed that the seizures have been less compared to the recent Lok Sabha elections.
It emphasised to rework the strategy, monitor the working of different flying squad surveillance teams and static surveillance teams.
The team also reviewed the preparations related to the counting centres, postal ballot papers and training of the polling staff.
Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal said that a centralized postal ballot collection centre would be established in Karnal.
The Election Commission team reiterated that maximum efforts should be made at the local level and the state level to enhance the voters turnout in these elections.
It cited the recent good voter turnout in the sensitive districts of Jammu and Kashmir and said that Haryana should draw inspiration from that.
At the end of the meeting, Hirdesh Kumar re-emphasised that all efforts should be made to ensure free and fair polls.
The districts covered in the meeting included Panchkula, Ambala, Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Panipat, Kaithal, Jind, Fatehabad, Sirsa and Hisar.
( Source : PTI )
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