Freebies to be added to election expenses of individual contestants
The CEC team also instructed Enforcement Agencies and State departments to explore innovative transportation routes for the seizure of liquor and narcotics
- Telangana
NewsTAP Bureau- Updated On:1 Nov 2023 5:20 PM GMT
HYDERABAD: HYDERABAD: The Central Election Commission team has directed Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj and senior IAS and IPS officers monitoring the election work to add the cost of freebies offered by political parties to the expenditure of contestants.
They also advised State officials to be lenient if the evidence convinced them that the case was genuine. However, the team specifically inquired about the cases seized under 102 Cr.PC.
Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Dharmendra Sharma, Senior Dy.EC Nitesh Kumar Vyas, and Principal Secretary Avinash Kumar visited Hyderabad on Wednesday to assess the state election machinery's readiness to conduct free and fair elections to the State Legislature before issuing notification.
The CEC team gave several instructions and asked to take positions immediately after finishing the remaining work in order to fine-tune it. The CEC team also instructed enforcement agencies and State departments to explore innovative transportation routes for the seizure of liquor and narcotics.
They were happy to learn that the integrated control room was already in place to monitor Flying Squads(FST) and static Surveillance Teams(SST), Suvidha, c-Vigil, and Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC). The central team was also keen on finding out the time of clearance regarding the pending applications of voters lists and the status of printing, distribution of EPIC cards, voters information slips etc. He insisted on the clearance of Media certification & Monitoring committee(MCMC) certificates on a daily basis.
Senior Deputy Election Commissioner also
Dharmendra Sharma inquired about the setup of surveillance cameras at polling stations and appreciated the media's arrangements for news coverage.
He also instructed the officials to issue prescribed postal ballot forms for senior citizens and persons with physical disabilities (PwD) voters who wish to vote from their homes in advance. He demonstrated a keen interest in understanding every aspect of the arrangements made at polling centers.
The central team was also briefed on the arrangements made by CEO Vikas Raj, Additional CEO Lokesh Kumar, Joint CEO Sarfaraj Ahmad, and Deputy CEO Satyavani through presentations and developments thus far.
