GANDHINAGAR, Nov 7: For the first time in Gujarat, the coming Assembly elections would have ‘police observers’ and ‘awareness observers’, appointed by the Election Commission of India.
“To ensure free and fair polls, ECI has, for the first time in Gujarat, appointed police observers and awareness observers, in addition to (the customary) general observers, expenditure observers and poll observers,” said Chief Electoral Officer Anita Karwal here today.
She said the awareness observers will take a stock of ECI’s ‘Systematic Voters’ Education And Electoral Participation’ (SVEEP) programme and present a progress report.
SVEEP, which started off in 2009, handles the work related to increasing voters’ awareness and their education, aimed at improving the electoral participation.
For every district, a senior IPS officer would act as a police observer, to supervise the law and order situation and take care of deployment of central forces.
These observers are mostly from other states.
General observers monitor the entire election process including training of election officers, booth arrangements, enforcement of Model Code of Conduct and vote counting.
Poll observers from seven states had visited Gujarat and taken stock of voters’ lists, enrolment of voters, etc, while expenditure observers would be monitoring candidates’ poll-related expenditures and ‘paid news activities’, she said. (PTI)
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