The Election Commissioner said this while addressing a crowded press conference, in Jammu Friday evening, after holding several meetings with political parties and Divisional Administration.
Mr. Chawla, along with Deputy Election Commissioner of India, R. Balakrishnan, arrived here this morning from
Reiterating the Election Commission’s resolve for zero tolerance to violation of the Model Code of Conduct, Mr. Chawla said that three Election Observers have been appointed for each Parliamentary constituency for supervising the poll process, besides deploying Micro Observers who will be Central government employees.
The Election Commissioner said the Election Commission was happy that there were negligible violations of Model Code of Conduct in the State which too have been addressed. Making specific mention of two violations, the Election Commissioner said that one related to wall writing in Doda and the other to excessive use of vehicles and the same have been seized by the police.
About the complaints of inadequate security cover to some candidates, Mr. Chawla said that Election Commission has asked for a list of political functionaries so that the same can be compared with those who have already been provided security cover.
While expressing satisfaction over security arrangements being made for forthcoming elections, the Election Commissioner said that all inter-State borders would be sealed so that no liquor or muscle power is transported inside the State.
Mr. Chawla said that he held meetings with various political parties and in the afternoon took a full review of the poll preparedness with Divisional Administration, District Election Officers of Jammu Division, IGs, DIGs as well as SSPs of the respective districts. The political parties that met Mr. Chawla included BSP, BJP, CPI, CPI (M), INC, NCP, J&K NC, J&K NPP and the PDP. He said that some parties raised the issue of providing adequate lighting arrangements at polling stations and the Election Commission has asked for a specific list of polling stations to address the issue.
The Election Commissioner said that during the meeting, the political parties also raised the issue of EPICs and added that instructions have been given to the concerned authorities for issuing the same within two days. “I raised the point of providing Booth Level Agent who will sit together with the Booth Level Officer to further clean up the rolls to make the poll process more transparent”, Mr. Chawla said.
Expressing serious concern over the trend of dummy candidates who take the facilities but campaign for other contesting candidates during elections, the Election Commissioner said that the expenditure incurred by such candidates would be booked on the candidates for whom they campaign.
Mr. Chawla said all prominent candidates, those with criminal background as well as prominent public meetings are being videotaped and any violation of the Model Code of Conduct would be strictly dealt with. “The Election Observer will see the footage within two days and any controversial statement which is violative of the Representation of People’s Act will be dealt with firmly”, he assured.
Laying special emphasis on Vulnerability Mapping of various constituencies, Mr. Chawla said the Election Observers have been asked to identify the communities who have not voted for a long time and to probe the reasons for the same. “The Observers have to ascertain whether these communities have been intimidated and to address their problems”, he said, adding that the names of the Elections Observers along with their addresses and phone numbers have been widely published in the newspapers. He asked the political parties to get in touch with Election Observers in case of any election-related complaint.
Drawing a comparison between 2004 and 2009 Parliamentary elections, the Election Commissioner said that a proper Communication Plan has to be put in place where under any complaint can be answered within hours of reaching Control Room set up at New Delhi or the offices of the State Chief Electoral Officers.
Replying to a question about the security scenario in the State, Mr. Chawla said that enough forces have been deployed to handle the elections. While justifying conduct of elections in five phases, he said the decision had been taken after proper inputs and said the same was necessitated for providing adequate security cover during each phase of election.
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