CEO stresses on special training programmes & voter awareness campaigns

As the ratio of young voters has considerably increased, therefore innovative measures need to be adopted to engage them in the polling process by means of social media and other such platforms. This was stated by Chief Electoral Officer, Maneesh Garg, while addressing a review meeting on poll preparedness held here today, for the coming assembly elections in the State. 

All the District Election Officers (DEOs) and Superintendents of Police (SPs) from all over the State who participated in the meeting gave detailed presentations pertaining to the poll preparedness in their districts,  in which multiple issues were discussed and highlighted. 

Welcoming the participants, CEO stressed the need for visiting the far flung polling stations to ensure that the election process can be carried out smoothly in these far flung areas of the State. Also, they should focus on the low turnout polling stations under the Mission 277 (focusing on 277 polling stations with less than 60% voter turnout in last Vidhan Sabha elections), launched by the election department. He asked the DEOs and SPs to carry out special training programs and voter awareness campaigns on EVMs through mobile demonstration vansin their respective districts.  Focus should be on identifying and roping in the third gender voters and Person With Disabilities (PWDs), for participating in the electoral process, he said.  There is a need to identify such voters and no voter should be left behind to participate in this ‘Utsav’ of democracy.

He said that focus should be to detect the fake news and similar contents that go viral on social media.  The DEOs should create a team in their districts to monitor the fake and paid news and report the same. Meetings should be held with the various political party representatives at regular intervals, said Maneesh Garg.

It is the duty of the district law enforcement agencies to ensure security of strong rooms with EVMs and multiple polling stations should be provided adequate strength so that they could be manned properly. The CEO also directed to monitor the expenditure sensitive constituencies or pockets and also to undertake the SVEEP activities during local fairs and festivities. Effective monitoring of CCTV footages should be done on a regular basis.

Speaking on the occasion Abhishek Trivedi, Additional Director General of Police said that proper training of all police personnel, of IOs on electoral offences should be ensured. Effective enforcement mechanisms should be put in place immediately.