Election Commission reviews planning for polls in five states

New Delhi: Gearing up for assembly elections in the five states of Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday held a review meeting on advance planning for forthcoming elections with the chief electoral officers of the five states.

According to ECI's statement, the focus of the meeting on various thematic issues, including assured minimum facilities (AMF) at the polling stations, ease of registration arrangements for voter facilitation, electoral roll, timely resolution of grievances, arrangements of EVMs/VVPATs, postal ballot facility for senior citizens and PwDs, Covid-19 mitigation plan, etc.

In the meeting, chief election commissioners of all states made their suggestions on the arrangements for the upcoming elections, the requirements of the security forces and the steps to be taken to comply with the most important corona rules.

As per EC officials, assembly elections in all five poll-bound states would be held as per the schedule. Recently, CEC Sushil Chandra had said that the Election Commission has learned a lot from the elections in four states, including West Bengal during the epidemic and the Bihar assembly elections held earlier.

"Transparency and impartiality are the hallmark of the election process. Issues and challenges may be different in each state, but election planning needs to have a voter-centric approach and participative decision making involving all stakeholders," Chandra said in his address at the meeting.