*To meet Observers, representatives of political parties
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 30: Chief Election Commissioner of India, V S Sampath is arriving here on April 2 to review all the arrangements put in place for the smooth conduct of Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir. The elections to six Lok Sabha seats in the State are scheduled to be held in five phases from April 10 to May 7.
Accompanied by Election Commissioner, Dr Narim Zaidi and Deputy Election Commissioner, Vinod Zutshi, the Chief Election Commissioner will reach Jammu on April 2 evening and start reviewing the arrangements for the elections from 9 am on April 3, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
The Chief Election Commissioner will first chair joint meeting of Chief Electoral Officer, Umang Narula, Principal Secretary Home, Suresh Kumar, Special DGP State Police, K Rajendra, both the Divisional Commissioners, IGPs of Jammu and Kashmir Zones, all the 22 District Election Officers (DEOs) and District Superintendents of Police in order to ascertain the security and other arrangements put in place for the free and fair elections.
Thereafter, the Chief Election Commissioner will hold detailed interaction with all the 30 Observers, who have already been deployed for supervising the Parliamentary elections, to ascertain their viewpoints on the arrangements and compliance of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by the political parties.
According to the official sources, the Chief Election Commissioner will also hold interaction with the representatives of the political parties before leaving for the Union Capital on April 3 evening.
All the 22 District Election Officers have been sounded by the Chief Electoral Officer about the visit of Chief Election Commissioner and instructions have been issued to them to come up with all the details about the Communication Plan, Election Management Plan, Polling Station facilities, manpower deployment, Transport Plan and Web Casting of the polling stations, sources said.
Similarly, District Superintendents of Police have been directed to remain prepared for answering the queries of the Chief Election Commissioner about the Security Plan detailing the steps taken to ensure violence free elections.
A high-level panel of police and para-military forces set up by the Government to make security arrangements for the elections has already decided to deploy 330 companies of Central Armed Police Forces apart from the entire police force at the disposal of the State to ensure free, fair and smooth polling, sources informed.
Special DGP, K Rajendra will elaborate the Chief Election Commissioner about the steps taken to ensure that no violent incident takes place during the polling and the steps planned to ensure fool proof security in the all the sensitive areas, polling stations and their adjacent areas.
It is pertinent to mention here that so far, 5618 licensed arms have been deposited and 3 impounded while as no incident of violence related to poll campaign and political rivalry has been reported till date.
Moreover, 2553 nakas have been operationalised while as 693 cases have been put up under preventive sections of CrPC out of which 669 persons bound over under preventive sections. A total of 308 persons have been identified as probable source of trouble.
Sources informed that the deployment of Government officers and officials for the election duty would also come up for detailed discussion, adding around 60,000 officers and officials are likely to be deployed for the election duty.
Besides elaborating other arrangements for the smooth conduct of elections, the District Election Officers will apprise the Chief Election Commissioner about the Web-Casting of polling stations and counting centres, which has been ordered in order to keep hawk’s eye on each and every activity. Moreover, the DEOs will inform the CEC about the number of voters added during the special summary revision and outcome of the massive awareness being carried out by adopting different means, sources said.
In a meeting with the Observers, Mr Sampath would review the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct and expenditure monitoring besides the steps taken by the DEOs to check the use of money and liquor in the elections, sources further said.
“The objective behind holding interaction with the representatives of the political parties is to ascertain whether they are satisfied with the arrangements for the elections and take corrective steps in case of any shortcoming to be pointed out by them”, sources added.
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