Election Commission heightens surveillance as poll process in Punjab enters final phase

Chandigarh, April 24, 2014: With the culmination of polling in 2/3rd of the country today evening, the focus of Election Commission today shifted to Punjab as it heightened its surveillance with poll campaign reaching its crescendo.
Briefing the media persons, V.K. Singh, CEO Punjab today said that a comprehensive plan was chalked out to keep maximum alertness during 48 hours before polls to check any flow of liquor or money to woo voters. He said that flying squads and static surveillance teams have been asked to be more proactive with clear instructions to district Police Chiefs to ensure availability of sufficient force during that period. He said that today a meeting of representatives of all parties was convened to sensitise them about the dos and don’ts during that period. He said that during that period door to door campaign could be done that to with the local persons as no outsider except an elected representative, candidate or election agent could stay after the campaign ends 48 hours before the final polling time. He said that DEOs have been directed to get checked the hotels, inns and guest houses so that there should not be any outsider staying there. He said that these 48 hours would be the dry days hence the liquor could not be served even in private functions. He said that the liquor vends in 3Kms of area of adjoining states like Haryana, J&K, Himachal and Rajasthan would remain shut in those 48 hours.
He said that all political parties have been asked to ensure the presence of their polling agents at 6:00AM on polling booths to participate in mock poll so that the polling should be started by 7:00AM sharp. He said that the party booths of size 10X10 could be erected 200 meters far away from polling booths. He said that white slips with name and number of voter could be issued but it shouldn’t have any election symbol printed on it. He said that the polling agents should also note down the number of EVMs. He cautioned them against any allurement of voters and said that the erring persons would be prosecuted according to the law.
He informed that total 82 notices have been issued for suspected paid news and the expenditure was booked in 58 cases.
Speaking on the occasion, B. Purushartha, Additional CEO said that everyone has access to real time poll percentage from assembly segment wise and parliamentary constituency wise through Punjab CEO’s website http://ceopunjab.nic.in. He said that this information would be collected through SMS based poll day monitoring system developed with the help of NIC, Punjab Unit. He said that the Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers, Booth Level Officers and Sector Magistrates have been trained to send the message for the events occurred inside the polling stations from time to time like mock poll, start of polling and number of agents and number of votes polled.
He said that voters of 20 purely urban assembly constituencies would be able to get information regarding queue status by sending an SMS to +919211728082 in the format of ceopjb <space> qs <space> acno <space> partno or ceopjb <space> EPIC No. and the system would send the information of the polling station location as well as the number of voters standing in the queue. He said that for ensuring free and fair polls 20 sensitive polling stations of each district (total 440) would be monitored through web casting. He said that all the polling stations in the state have been designated as model polling booths and the volunteers would ensure priority voting for blind/infirm/old voters and pregnant and lactating mothers. He said that efforts were being made to set up super model polling stations and the DEOs were already on job with new initiatives there.
Raminder Singh and Supreet Singh, Additional CEOs and Amit Talwar, Joint CEO was also present on the occasion.