The Election Commission of India has advised the state chief secretary to examine the present mass recruitment processes carried out by various departments in the state and see it such process violates the norms of the election code of conduct, Chief Electoral Officer of Manipur Vivek Kumar Devangan told media persons today.
He was speaking at a press conference held at the old secretariat conference hall.
Vivek said that the ECI team which had recently visited the state had conducted a meeting with chief secretary and commissioner of department of Personnel on September 21.
During the meeting the chief secretary was instructed to examine the matter properly, he added.
This was in response to several complaints lodged by various political parties on the large scale recruitment in the various state departments, he said.
The ECI team has advised the chief secretary to find out whether any department has violated the norms of recruitment, he said.
The enquiry is underway and it is hoped that the chief secretary’s report will be submitted to the ECI soon, he said.
We also hope that the ECI will take timely action according to the report, he added.
He continued that the press conference is normal routine which is conducted every fortnight acting on advice from the ECI.
He said we are targeting to conduct the 2017 state Assembly election in a free and fair manner.
The draft electoral roll released has 187000 electors in the state, but after two rounds of gram sabha Special Summary Revision, we have received above 78,000 applications for addition, deletion and correction.
Applications must be sent by October 21, and final decision will be declared by November 18 for deletion or addition or correction.
The ECI has emphasised on two issues, he said and added the first one is the vulnerable and critical mapping of location and the second is the complaint on large scale recruitment drives in the state which are not following the recruitment norms.
Recently, the ECI had revised the guidelines on vulnerable and critical polling stations, he said.
Focusing on sensetieness of clusters where voters are lightly to be threatened by some groups etc. we have asked all SPs and DCs to help in the mapping, he said.
Election commission of India will conduct a review meeting with DCs and SPs on the issue on September 28 through video conferencing and training will be given to all the DCs and SPs to identify vulnerable and critical polling stations.
Web casting will be compulsory for vulnerable polling stations where there is reliable internet connectivity, he said.
As for places where there is no reliable internet, we will have VVPAT and where VVPAT can’t cover, we will have CCTV or video graphic recordings, he said.
Vivek also said that the Gram Sabha Special Summary Revision, which had already concluded on September 24 last, has been extended for another two weeks.
He said that in view of purifying the electors, the Election department has conducted first round of Gram Sabha Special Summary Revision on September 10 and the second round on September 24.
The main objective of conducting Gram Sabha was purification of electoral rolls. In this process, BLOs, Supervisors, public representatives etc were included, he added.
The state election officials would be committed to strictly follow the instructions and advice of the ECI for regular interactions with press/media, political parties will be held on fortnightly basis, he announced.
For claims and objections, the electors may use form no. 6 for addition, form no. 7 for deletion and form no. 8 for correction. The electors can do the needful by obtaining the forms from the BLOs. Double and multiple entry of electors will be check in Gram Sabha, he said.
As per instruction of the Election Commission, rationalisation of ROs, EROs, AEROs for the 60 Assembly constituencies will be done so that each constituency will be looked after by one officer, he added.
A proposal in this regard has been sent to Election Commission. The proposal includes appointing 39 ROs /EROs and 73 AEROs/AROs, stated the CEO.
The CEO appealed to all stakeholders, political parties to come forward and co-operate with election machinery like EROs in purifying the electoral rolls.
In the purification exercise, the election authorities want to clean those electors who have double/multiple entry in the electoral rolls. The Election department is trying it best to bring out error free final publication of Electoral Rolls on January 2, 2017 with January 1, 2017 as qualifying date.
Additional CEO Shri R.K. Dinesh also attended the press briefing.
