Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Kumar on Wednesday said the Director-General of Police had stated that he had not given any instructions to the police to collect details of voters who had opted for 49-0 (not willing to vote for any candidate) in the recent elections to the Assembly held on April 13.
He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of a training programme on counting of votes scheduled for May 13 for poll officials from seven districts of western Tamil Nadu.
On the progress achieved in cases registered with regard to violation of poll code of conduct, Mr. Kumar said he had already instructed police officials to expedite the process of filing charge sheet for poll code violations.
More than 10,000 personnel would be involved in counting of votes for the 234 constituencies.There will be 14 tables for each Assembly segment. Counting will begin at 8 a.m. First, postal ballots would be taken up.
Electronic voting machines would be taken up around 8.30 a.m.
The officials involved in counting would be trained in a phased manner.
Training sessions would be held in Tiruchi on April 28, on May 3 in Madurai, on May 4 in Pudukottai and on May 5 in Chennai.
Mr.Kumar exhorted poll officials not to give room for any complaints. Declaration of results should be done in the presence of observers. He asked officials to pay attention to the finer aspects of outer ring and inner ring security, provision of drinking water and seating facility for agents of the candidates.
He also asked officials to set up a media room for furnishing results.
Earlier, Mr. Kumar along with Additional Chief Electoral Officer P. Amudha, District Collector P. Umanath and District Revenue Officer A. Shanmugasundaram visited the Government College of Technology, the counting centre in Coimbatore, and inspected the arrangements such as posting of armed guards for the strong room where the EVMs are kept.
At the training session held in Coimbatore, District Collectors P. Umanath (Coimbatore), C. Samayamoorthy (Tirupur), Archana Patnaik (the Nilgiris), J. Chandrakumar (Salem), C. Kamaraj (Erode), R. Anandakumar (Dharmapuri) and V. Arun Roy (Krishnagiri) along with Returning Officers and Assistant Returning Officers, besides micro observers, took part.
