NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, JAN 8
The Election Commission on Saturday announced the dates for assembly polls in five states— Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand.
“COVID-19 has made conduct of polls challenging,” Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said, adding that there are a total of 690 assembly seats in the five poll-bound states. More than 18 crore voters, including over 8.5 crore women, will be eligible to vote in these polls, Chandra added.
“We aim to conduct Covid-safe elections in five states with maximum voter participation with extensive preparations,” he said, adding that all polling stations will be equipped with Covid-mitigation facilities, including sanitisers and masks. There is also an increase of 16 percent in the number of polling stations.
While the tenure of the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly ends in May, the terms of the legislative assemblies of Goa, Manipur and Punjab end on different dates in March.
The elections will be conducted in seven phases, the CEC said. Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in seven phases from February 10 to March 7. Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa will vote on February 14, and Manipur to vote in two phases on February 27 and March 3. The votes in all the five states will be counted on March 10.
Amid massive surge in COVID-19 cases across the country, the EC had recently asked the five states to step up the inoculation drive against the viral disease and ensure that the personnel to be deployed on election duty are “double vaccinated”. In a letter to the chief secretaries, the EC had stressed that polling personnel come under the category of frontline workers and are eligible for the “precaution dose” of the COVID-19 vaccines.
ECI announces ‘Campaign Curfew’; bars physical rallies and roadshows till Jan 15
While briefing media, the Chief Election Commissioner, Sushil Chandra has made an important announcement that no physical rally, roadshow, padayatra, cycle/motorbike rallies or similar on-ground campaigning is allowed till January 15 in the wake of the alarming spread of COVID-19 across the country.
Election Commission announces initiative to encourage women voters
Sushil Chandra mentioned that as the commission’s ‘firm commitment towards the greater constructive participation of women’, they have decided that each assembly constituency will have at least one polling station required to be managed by a woman staff member. He stated that some constituencies would also have many more than just one station, and the commission is looking at setting up 1620 such polling booths exclusively for women. He mentioned that this would ’empower women’, and help them go forward to cast their vote ‘without any hesitation’.
“More than 1 lakh polling stations are covered by cameras. Also, nearly 900 observers have been deployed to keep a watch on the field. EC has directed that all the people on election duty will have to be double vaccinated. All the election officers will be treated as the frontline workers, and they will be given the booster dose. Gloves, sanitisers everything to be there,” said Sushil Chandra on the concerning COVID situation. “In view of covid concerns
