Mail News Service
New Delhi, Dec 24: Assembly elections in Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be held between Jan 28 and March 3, the Election Commission announced on Saturday. Elections for Manipur will be held on Feb 28. Uttar Pradesh will have assembly elections in seven phases from February 4 to 28, while Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab will have single-phase elections, the Election Commission announced. Counting in all the five states will be held on March 4, Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi told a press conference here.
UP, with 403 constituencies, will witness polling on February 4, 8, 11, 15, 19, 23 and 28, while neighbouring Uttarakhand (70 constituencies) will have polling on January 30.
The polling in 117 constituencies of Punjab will also be held on January 30.
Manipur (60 constituencies) and Goa (40 constituencies) will have polls on January 28 and March 3 respectively.
The Code of Conduct has come into effect in all the election going states with immediate effect.
The electoral rolls of all the existing Assembly Constituencies in the States of Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are being revised, with reference to 01.01.2012 as the qualifying date, and shall be finally published on 02.01.2012.
Goa has 1011673 electors, Manipur 1677270, Punjab 17433408, Uttar Pradesh, 111916689, Uttarakhand, 5740148
Photo electoral rolls will be used Identification of the voters at the polling booth at the time of poll shall be mandatory. Electors who have been provided with EPIC shall be identified through EPIC only. As mentioned above, presently, the EPIC coverage in the poll
going States is:
Goa 98.06
Manipur 87.2
Punjab 99.66
Uttar Pradesh 98.5
Uttarakhand 99.8
The poll in all the 5 (Five) States will be conducted at all polling stations using EVMs. Based on the assessment of the ground situation, Central Police Forces (CPF) and State Armed Police (SAP) drawn from other States will be deployed during the ensuing general elections. The CPF and SAP will be used generally for safeguarding the polling stations, the electors, poll-material and the polling personnel. Besides, these forces will be used for securing the strong rooms where the EVMs are stored pending counting and for securing the counting centers.
The Commission will be constantly monitoring the ground situation closely and will take appropriate measures to ensure peaceful, free and fair polls in these States.
The Commission will deploy General Observers in adequate number to ensure smooth conduct of elections. The Observers will be asked to keep a close watch on every stage of the electoral process to ensure free and fair elections.
Their names, addresses within the district/constituency and their telephone numbers will be publicized in local newspapers so that the general public can quickly approach them for any grievance redressal. The Observers will be given a detailed briefing by the Commission before their deployment.
Election Expenditure Monitoring
The Commission has also decided to appoint adequate number of Expenditure Observers and Assistant Expenditure Observers who will exclusively monitor the election expenditure of the contesting candidates. For greater transparency and for ease of monitoring of Election Expenses, Candidates would be required to open a separate bank account and incur their election expenses from that very account. Comprehensive instructions for the purpose of effective
monitoring of the election expenditure of the candidates, including formation of flying squads, video Surveillance Teams in the constituency, involvement of Investigation Directorates of Income Tax Deptt. etc. have been separately
issued by the Commission and are available at ECI website . The format for filing of affidavits regarding criminal backgrounds. assets, liabilities and educational qualification of the candidates have been modified to include a summary sheet.
To deal with the issue of Paid News, Monitoring Committees have been set up at District, State and Commission level and necessary instructions have been issued to the District Election Officers and the CEOs of the five poll-going States. Representatives of political parties and media organizations of the poll-going States have also been briefed.
Micro Observers
In addition to General Observers, the Commission will also deploy Micro- observers to observe the poll proceedings in the polling stations on the poll day in selected critical polling stations. They will be chosen from Central
Government/Central PSUs officials. Micro-Observers will observe the proceedings at the polling stations on the poll day right from the mock poll to the completion of poll and the process of sealing of EVMs and other documents to ensure that all instructions of the Commission are complied with by the Polling Parties and the Polling Agents.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/manipur-goes-to-poll-on-jan-28/
