CEC urges CEOs to replicate successful initiatives ensuring integrity of election processes

New Delhi, Aug 10 (IANS) Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday urged the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) to replicate successful initiatives ensuring integrity of election processes.

The Election Commission organised a conference with the Chief Electoral Officers of poll-gone and poll-going states/UTs at India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management in New Delhi.

The CEC emphasised that initiatives and innovations by states need to be scrupulously replicated without compromising the integrity of the election processes. He added that individual initiatives and innovations by CEOs for use of IT in election management need to be comprehensively analysed with implementable features standardised and integrated with ECI IT systems/Apps to avoid duplication of efforts.

CEC Rajiv Kumar also mentioned the need for scientific management of election materials for optimal utilisation as well as a digital portal for easy access of all outreach content developed by states and ECI. The CEOs were directed to ensure that representatives from the National and State Disaster Response Force team are also called for coordination meetings. With changing connectivity and technological landscape, he highlighted that polling stations need to be geo-tagged and route charts need to be revised by district administration.

The main purpose of the conference was to share experiences and learnings from recently held State Assembly Elections in 2021 and 2022, along with thematic discussions on election planning, expenditure monitoring, electoral roll, IT applications, data management, EVM/VVPAT, SVEEP strategy, media and communication.

On the recent drive by the Commission for voluntary collection of Aadhaar, Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey stressed on the need for strict adherence to ECI guidelines on collection of details.