Concerning the demand for rescheduling of the polling date for Christian-dominated nine hill assembly constituencies, state chief electoral officer (CEO) Rajesh Agrawal on Thursday announced that the complaint has been forwarded to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for consideration.
“As the office of the chief electoral officer has no jurisdiction for changing the poll date, the demand was forwarded to the ECI,” he replied to a query raised by the media during a press conference held on Thursday at his office in Imphal West.
Following the announcement of election by the ECI on January 8, various groups of Christian community have been demanding for a re-arrangement of polling date for nine assembly constituencies dominated by Christian communities, stating that the date of polling falls on Sunday, which is against their religious sentiments.
During the press briefing, the CEO said that following the announcement of the model Code of Conduct, a total of 54,321 political defacements (wall writings, posters, banners, flags and others) have been removed so far from government, public and private properties.
Control rooms, Media Certification and Monitoring Committees and Complaint Monitoring System have been activated in all districts and the list of works (ongoing and not started) are collected by the Commission, he added.
Highlighting the progress of election related matters taken up by the Commission, he said that the Commission has so far identified 588 hamlets as vulnerable and 1,011 as trouble mongers. The Commission has also bound down 1,430 individuals under various sections while 260 nakas have been made operational, and 58.65 per cent of licensed arms have been deposited.
Moreover, the law enforcing agencies have so far seized illegal cash of Rs 50 lakh, liquor worth Rs 14,74,961, drugs worth Rs 26.558 crore and others incrementing items worth Rs 1.41 crore, he added.
So far, the Commission has received some minor complaints, he further informed, adding that all the complaints have been resolved within 100 minutes of receiving the complaints.
All necessary measures have been taken up to contain the pre-poll violence by deploying necessary security personnel including the state and central forces in areas which have been identified as vulnerable zones, he said, adding, “pre-poll violence is much contained in the state now.”
Agrawal also informed that the ECI has extended the facilities of postal ballots for people working in 11 approved essential services.
The 11 essential services are electricity department, BSNL, railways, post and telegram, doordarshan, AIR, Health department in connection with Covid, aviation, fire service, ambulance service and media persons authorised by the RCI for poll day coverage, he said.
Mentioning that the ECI has discontinued Photo Voter Slip as an identity proof since February 2019, he said that for identification at polling stations voters have to produce EPIC or any other identification documents such as aadhaar card, driving license and others along with the Voter Information Slip.
As preventive measures of COVID-19, there shall be no road show, pad-yatra, cycle, bike, vehicle rally and any procession till January 22, he said.
Mentioning that all Covid related preventive arrangements and logistics will be maintained in every polling station, he further said, “Every voter can exercise their franchise without any apprehension of contacting COVID-19.”
All the election-related updates will be made available to the media persons on every Thursday by organising a press conference and meeting with the media fraternity three times every week, the CEO added.
