As the talk of possible early elections is getting pronounced in political circles, the State election authority, Chief Electoral Officer, appears to be unprepared in terms of infrastructure and necessary facilities in the event of advancement of elections.
The CEO’s office was bifurcated recently and the election authority is yet to complete rationalisation of the polling stations, the preliminary requirement for the conduct of elections. The CEO’s office initiated the exercise of rationalisation of polling stations only recently and the new polling stations are likely to be notified by September 1. This will be followed by calling for objections and suggestions and the final notification of the number of polling stations is likely only around October second week.
“We have identified 31,253 polling stations as of now and the number could be around 32,000 by the time rationalisation is completed,” a senior official said. The election authority is also mandated to take up measures for conducting “accessible elections”, enabling persons with disabilities (PwD) to cast vote without any difficulty, as has been resolved in the conference convened by the Chief Election Commissioner in New Delhi on July 3 and 4.
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The official said the Roads and Buildings department was appointed nodal agency to ensure that necessary infrastructure, including ramps and wheelchairs for easy movement of PwD, was put in place in all identified polling stations. The CEO’s office would then take up door-to-door survey to ascertain the number of PwD and create awareness among them to cast vote. “Funds have been released to the R&B department in this direction and this will be followed by SWEEP (strengthening women’s empowerment through electoral process) campaign across the State,” the official told
It was only after the completion of these preliminary exercises that the election authority would be in a position to ascertain the exact number of ballot boxes and voter verified paper audit trail machines. “The countdown for the elections starts for us one year ahead of the elections and the entire exercise is likely to take at least another five months, after which we will be ready for the smooth conduct of the elections,” the official said.
Staff crunch was another major area that has to be addressed for the smooth conduct of the elections and the CEO’s office has represented the matter to the Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa and his deputy Sudeep Jain, who visited the State a couple of days ago through a PowerPoint presentation. The ECI authorities promised to take measures to ensure that the staff required was deputed at the earliest so that they could be trained well in advance.
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