Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Jan 8: The Election Commission has set into motion the preparation for upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which were scheduled to take place from the middle of April to May. The process to train and deploy the officers, identify polling stations has either been completed or was in the process of completion.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Jammu and Kashmir, Umang Narula told the Excelsior that the Election Commission would be deploying about 60,000 Government officers and officials for the election duty in the upcoming polls to six constituencies of Lok Sabha.
“Anything between 50,000 to 60,000,’’ he said on deployment of staff for election duty. The process to engage the staff has already started with the Election Commission having trained 900 Gazetted Officers as Master Trainers, Election Returning Officers (ERO) etc.
Mr Narula said the Election Commission would set up at least 9650 polling stations for all six Lok Sabha constituencies in the State, an increase of 173 over the previous polls.
“We have identified 9650 polling stations for six constituencies so far. Already, we have increased 173 polling stations. However, based on the revision of electoral rolls, if there was requirement of setting up of some more polling stations, the Election Commission can always set up auxiliary polling stations,’’ he added.
The CEO said each polling station would have one Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). Additional EVMs would be provided wherever the auxiliary polling stations were set up, he added.
Mr Narula said the Election Commission of India, as a part of its country wide exercise, has trained 900 Gazetted Officers from Jammu and Kashmir as Master Trainers and EROs etc, who would in turn, oversee the district level training of the remaining polling staff in the entire State.
The Election Commission has initiated the process to identify the polling staff for deployment on election duty so that they could be trained well in advance. Admitting that it was a huge task to train 50,000 to 60,000 officials, sources said the process has been started well in advance and would be completed ahead of schedule.
Apart from Master Trainers and EROs, the Election Commission would also be deploying Sector Officers, Zonal Officers, Magistrates, Micro Observers and Expenditure Observers for the elections to keep strict vigil on candidates, their polling agents, campaign and other activities to ensure that everything goes well within the norms prescribed by the Election Commission of India, Mr Narula said.
Asserting that first level checking of the EVMs has already been completed, he said the Deputy Commissioners of all districts of the State have been asked to prepare data base of everything including polling staff, EVMs, polling stations etc.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has extended the date for publication of electoral rolls after summary revision from January 6 to January end, Mr Narula said.
The final electoral rolls after the summary revision were due to be published on January 6. However, the deadline has now been extended to the month end.
Sources said the entire exercise for publication of final rolls after summary revision, which has started in the month of September, has nearly been completed and the rolls would be published by January end as per the directions of the Election Commission of India.
Jammu and Kashmir has six Lok Sabha constituencies including Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda in Jammu region, Srinagar-Budgam, Baramulla-Kupwara and Anantnag-Pulwama in Kashmir region and Ladakh in Ladakh region.
They were likely to go to polls in two to three phases in view of security considerations.
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