Bhubaneswar: The State Election Commission (SEC) Friday asked all the collectors and superintendents of police to draw a master plan to ensure smooth, impartial and peaceful conduct of three-tier panchayat polls in each district for submission to the commission by January 24.
SEC RN Senapati has given the instructions to the collectors and SPs during a high-level preparatory meeting at Secretariat Friday morning which was attended by development commissioner R Balakrishnan, home secretary Asit Tripathy, panchayati raj secretary DK Singh and DGP KB Singh. The SEC instructed all collectors, SPs and officials concerned to ensure preparation of electoral rolls at the earliest for distribution among political parties.
The meeting put special emphasis on smooth conduct of polls in sensitive and hyper-sensitive booths, especially in LWE-affected districts.
Advising SPs and collectors to identify sensitive and hypersensitive booths in their districts, the SEC said CCTV cameras should be installed in the booths and videography should be employed in booths without such facility during the polling day.
“Model code of conduct must be followed strictly,” the SEC said, adding, “observers will be appointed in every district to ensure polls are conducted in a fair and transparent manner. For this, electoral observers and expenditure observers will be appointed.”
Asking collectors and SPs to facilitate the visit of observers to monitor polls, the SEC directed district administrations to ensure presence of observers whenever and wherever a political party conducts its meeting.
Issuing instructions on ballots, the SEC said ballots should be stored in strong rooms of district treasuries prior to polling.
Underscoring the need to ensure utmost security while supplying ballot papers to all blocks, SEC asked collectors to instruct BDOs in their respective areas to identify strong rooms in the blocks for storing of ballot papers and boxes.
The collectors and SPs were also asked to verify ballots at the district level before supplying them to blocks and inform the SEC in case of any discrepancy.
Ten per cent additional ballots will be sent to every booth during polling days for their use in case of any emergency.
The SEC also informed the participants that ballot papers for ward members will be blue, for panchayat samiti members and sarpanches it will be pink and yellow respectively. The ballot colour for zilla parishad members – who will contest on party symbols – will be white.
Moreover, the collectors , SPs and all concerned were asked to be impartial and not order any transfers and postings without approval from the SEC.
Notably, polling for the three-tier panchayati raj institutions will take place in five phases: February 13, 15, 17, 19 and 21.
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