Election Commission to review poll preparedness in state today

The full Bench of the Election Commission headed by the Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi will visit the city on Thursday and hold a review meeting with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in the state Sunil Gupta and the administrative officials in all poll bound districts. The meeting will be held at a city hotel.

The full Bench will take a stock of the poll preparedness in the districts where the elections are yet to take place. It was learnt that the full Bench will ask the District Magistrates and Police Superintendents of the remaining districts about the law and order situation, what was the status of executing the non-bailable warrants that were still pending in different police station areas in the 18 districts where polls are due.

The full Bench of the Commission may also ask the CEO and the other senior officials to pull up their socks to ensure free and fair elections. The Commission may deploy more number of central forces to ensure an incident free election. The full Bench may seek a report from the District Election Officers about how they were executing the Commission’s instructions. In their earlier visit the Commission had asked the officials to execute the pending non-bailable warrants and if the confidence boosting measures were properly carried out by the central forces especially in the trouble some areas of the districts.

In their earlier visit the Commission’s full Bench had instructed to arrest the notorious criminals so that they cannot create any nuisance. The District Election Officials were also asked to conduct the route march by the Central Forces in every corner of the district to boost up the confidence of the voters.

In the video conference which was held on Tuesday the Commission’s full Bench asked the District Electoral Officers in Birbhum to carry out confidence boosting measures extensively. There were reports of poll violence in Birbhum. The commission had also laid a stress on the seizure of illegal arms, illicit liquor. The general observers, police observers and expenditure observers were already deployed in the poll bound districts. Birbhum and the other districts in North Bengal will go to poll on 17 April.

It was learnt that the full Bench will also hold meeting with the representatives of various political parties tomorrow. 

In their previous meeting with the political party leaders the Commission had received several complaints against various police and administrative officials who were showing their allegiance to the ruling party. The Commission later removed many officers from the election duty.