Lok Sabha polls: EC appoints special observers for 8 states

New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday appointed four special observers, two retired IRS and two IPS officer, to spearhead its efforts to check the abuse of black money and illegal inducements to voters and monitor deployment of security forces in select sensitive states during the Lok Sabha polls.

The poll-body appointed Gopal Mukherjee as special expenditure observer for the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and D D Goel for Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. Mukherjee, a 1980-batch officer of the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) retired as Member (Investigations) in the Central Board of Direct Taxes, while Goel, a 1982-batch officer of the same service, superannuated as Director General of I-T (Investigations).

The Election Commission also appointed former BSF chief and retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer K K Sharma as the special central police observer for the states of West Bengal and Jharkhand.

Mrinal Kanti Das, a 1977-batch IPS officer of Manipur-Tripura candre, has been assigned as police observer for the states of Tripura and Mizoram.

The Election Commission, last week, had appointed the two special expenditure observers -- IRS officers Shailendra Handa and Madhu Mahajan.

While they were assigned the states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu initially, the Election Commission Tuesday said Handa will also supervise the EC machinery to check illegal cash and inducements to voters in Gujarat and Mahajan has been additionally assigned Karnataka.