Making it clear that the district Collectors and Superintendents of Police had greater responsibility in conducting the elections, Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Kumar Meena said on March 16 (Saturday) that action would be initiated against them by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for any of their misdeeds.
“The Superintendents of Police are responsible for any election violence during the period when the Model Code of Conduct is in force,” Mr. Meena warned while addressing the media at the Secretariat after the ECI announced the schedule for the General Elections to the Lok Sabha and Assembly. He said elections would be conducted in Andhra Pradesh in the fourth phase.
“The ECI will issue a notification in Andhra Pradesh on April 18. The last date for filing the nominations is April 25. The scrutiny of nominations will be on April 26, and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is April 29. The date of polling is on May 13 and the date of counting of votes is June 4. The elections will be completed by June 6,” Mr. Meena said.
The CEO said that the ECI had instructed all the SPs to ensure ‘zero violence’ during the elections. “If any violence takes place, then the SP concerned should act immediately and bring normalcy, otherwise he will be responsible for that,” he said. The district Collectors would have to ensure free and fair elections without any repolling, he said.
Stating that 3,82,218 employees would be drafted for the conduct of elections in Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Meena said teachers would comprise of 60% of the total election staff on the polling day.
With regard to the presence of the regular staff of the village and ward secretariat, he said that the ECI allowed only one employee at any given polling station out of the total 46,165 across the State. In normal polling stations, there would be six polling staff, and out of them only one could be drawn from the village and ward secretariats, Mr. Meena said. The ECI would form teams randomly through a specially designed software, he added.
The CEO made it clear that volunteers, who were appointed by the State government for delivering public services, would not be allowed to participate in any election-related work. They would also be barred from participating in campaigning in favour of any political party and other such activities, Mr. Meena said.
Regarding the number of polling stations, Mr. Meena said there were 12,045 stations in the urban areas and 34,120 stations in the rural areas. “A total of 46,165 polling stations are at 27,612 locations. The expected auxiliary polling stations will be 219, which will be finalised by the ECI,” he said.
The auxiliary stations are arranged wherever the government does not have proper basic infrastructure.
On an average, there are 887 voters per polling station as per the final electoral rolls. Interestingly, 179 polling stations will be managed by women teams, 63 polling stations by persons with disability, and 50 polling stations by youth. There are 4.09 crore electors. Of them, two-crore are males, 2.08-crore females and 3,346 third gender.
Mr. Meena said that election observers had already been deployed and they would monitor the day-to-day developments. He said the ECI seized cash and material worth more than ₹164 crore so far and it would continue till the end of the elections.
