Telangana gears up for fair elections with establishment of Integrated Command Control Room

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has established an Integrated Command and Control Room to monitor ground situations, including seizures, Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations, and campaigning issues, for free, fair, and transparent elections.

The set up, which operates 24 hours a day, supervises 1950 call centre complaints, campaigning issues under MCMC, c-Vigil, Flying Surveillance Team (FST), Static Surveillance Team (SST), excise department, police department, social media, Suvidha App, etc., and also supervises 18 Distilleries and 6 Breweries in Telangana until all election processes in the State conclude.

Monitoring situations entails keeping an eye on inter-state borders, responding to complaints received via email, and so on. This control room also monitors 15 satellite TV channels as well as three YouTube channels. In addition to control rooms managed at District Election Office (DEOs) and Returning Officer (ROs), live web casting, CCTV cameras, video graphing the election process at various levels.

The Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC) has tracked seizures, MCC violations, and political advertisements from all parties. So far, 2,217 MCC violations, seizures, and political advertisements on TV channels were examined.

A helpline with a toll-free number 1950, established in 2011-12 at the CEO's office, has received 1,886 calls so far to guide voters from enrollment to voter verification procedures, EPIC cards.

Calls received to 1950 helpline were routed to the District Election Officers (DCCs) of the respective districts. The complaints were also registered with the National Grievance Redressal Service (NGRS) on request, which received 694 complaints since October 9, 2023.

A total of 385 Flying Surveillance Team (FST) vehicles were operated to attend c-Vigil complaints in addition to the regular surveillance seizures and Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations.

The c-Vigil App, which reports MCC expenditure violations by taking photos, audio, and video with mobile phones, received 4,643 complaints, 2,858 of which were found to be correct and disposed/escalated, and 1,767 were dropped.

Suvidha is an online portal for filing nominations and Affidavits, which candidates use to request permission for meetings, rallies, and other events.

As of November 16th, 26,554 permission requests from all 119 Assembly constituencies were received, with 19114 accepted, 3,626 rejected, 487 in progress, and 2,230 pending.

As many as 437 check-posts have been established, 882 cameras have been installed, and 33 control rooms are operational in all districts till November 16, 2023.

The Social Media Monitoring Cell, comprising police and IT personnel, has identified 25 negative posts on social media during the election period against EVMs, poll process, ECI, and CEO of Telangana.