Chandigarh – To review the action taken on the directions of the commission issued to the authorities involved in the election process during its visit to the state of Haryana on August 12-13, 2024, a team of Senior officers from the Election Commission of India held a meeting today with Divisional Commissioners, IG Police range, Deputy Commissioners cum DEOs, Police Commissioners and SPs, General Observors, Police Observors from 11 districts regarding preparedness of ongoing General Election to Haryana Vidhan Sabha – 2024. The team comprised of Deputy Election Commissioner, Shri Hirdesh Kumar, Director Expenditure, Shri Pankaj Srivastava, Deputy Election Commissioner, Shri Sanjeev Kumar and Principal Secretary, Shri S.B. Joshi. The meeting was held in the presence of Haryana Chief Electoral Officer, Shri Pankaj Agarwal.
The Commission led by Sh. Rajiv Kumar, Chief Election Commissioner had then 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 conduct of free and fair elections by maintaining good law and order situation. It had 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 voters turnout. DEOs were directed to be equally accessible to all the political parties and to resolve promptly the grievances related to various election related activities. ,
In today’s meeting, Shri Hirdesh Kumar, Deputy Election Commissioner reviewed the marking of electoral rolls, time plan for preparing ASD (Absentee, shifted, Duplicate or Dead) lists, distribution of voter lists, Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) distribution and addressing any major complaint related to electoral rolls. He stated that the printing of pending EPIC cards should be persued with the printer and the EPIC cards should be distributed by 30th Sep. The BLOs can be engaged for ensuring the compliance of this task. The marked lists should be prepared as per the instructions. Also the copies of the electoral rolls handed over to the candidates should match with the marked electoral rolls.
The team emphasized the importance of ensuring that all polling stations are fully equipped with the necessary facilities. He instructed District Commissioners-cum-DEOs and SPs to personally inspect polling stations to verify the availability of essential resources. The Commission emphasised that the Voter Facilitation Booths should be set up by the BLOs 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. The DEOs briefed the Election Commission regarding the setup of special model polling booths. These include ‘pink booths’ staffed entirely by women employees, youth employees managed booths, and booths overseen by persons with disabilities (PWD) employees.
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 police of the neighbouring states.
In another meeting with the enforcement agencies of income tax department, SGST, CGST, State Police, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Directorate of Enforcement, Narcotics Control Bureau, Civil Aviation, Customs and State Transport, the team noticed that the seizures have been less compared to the recent Loksabha Elections. It emphasised to rework the strategy, monitor the working of different Flying Squad Surveillance Teams and Static Surveillance Teams. The police was asked to ensure immediate placement of Mirror Check Posts as per the Police Manual of the commission. The police authorities assured to take effective steps to enhance the surveillance and raise the seizures. The commission at the same time cautioned not to cause unnecessary public inconvenience while performing these duties. For monitoring the cash flow the daily bank reports has to be scrutinised at the DEO level by placing some experienced persons on the task. The authorities of other enforcement agencies like excise and taxation department, RPF, GRP, income tax department etc. were also encouraged and directed for better coordinated efforts to control and curb the flow of cash, drugs, and illicit liquor.
The team also reviewed the preparations related to the counting centres, postal ballot papers, training of the polling staff. The DEOs briefed on the above issues. The Chief Electoral Officer, Shri Pankaj Agarwal, informed that a centralized postal ballot collection centre will be established in Karnal. For home voting, provisions will be made for PwD voters and voters over the age of 85 by the concerned RO in the presence of polling agent and the videography of the process will also be carried. He stated that training of the election officials should be ensured, other requirement such as transportation facility of PwD voters, 85 age plus voters should be ensured by the department wherever required.
The team further reiterated that maximum efforts should be made at the local level and the state level to enhance the voters turnout in these elections. He cited the recent good voter turnout in sensitive districts of J&K, and said that the state should draw inspiration from that. At the end of the meeting he re-emphasised that all efforts should be made to ensure free and fair poll.
The districts covered in the meeting included Panchkula, Ambala, Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Panipat, Kaithal, Jind, Fatehabad, Sirsa, and Hisar.