It's our constitutional duty to ensure transparency in polls: Haryana CEO

Haryana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anurag Agarwal said on Saturday that with the announcement of Assembly elections by the Election Commission (EC), it is the electoral body's constitutional duty to ensure complete transparency in the polling process.

The CEO was interacting with the District Election Officers, Divisional Commissioners, Police Commissioners, and Superintendents of Police through video conferencing here on Saturday.

Agarwal said that new votes would be made by September 24. He said that all the election officers should resolve issues relating to the pending applications by focusing on the Form 6.

He stressed that till now the identity cards of the voters in 10 districts have been issued and all the concerned officers should ensure the timely distribution of the cards. He informed that the identity cards of the remaining districts will be distributed by September 23.

The CEO said that all the Deputy Commissioners should finalise their district-level election management plan and constitute a duty magistrate, sector officer, video viewing team, statistical survey team, and polling teams.

"Apart from this, booth level planning should also be done and its information should be given to the Sector Supervisor and Polling Agent," Agarwal said.

He said that if a school designated for polling booth is upgraded, then the concerned District Election Officer (DEO) will be able to change it accordingly.

The CEO said that the District Election Officer should ensure to generate awareness and hands-on training of EVMs and VVPATs to the polling staff.

"In this election, two types of categories of polling stations have been created - vulnerable and critical and such polling stations should be mentioned in the district-wise election management scheme and their mapping should also be done," Agarwal said.

The CEO said that under the Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation program (SVEEP) activity, a special campaign will be launched at the divisional level under which citizens will be sensitized to cast maximum votes at the village level and mock drill polls will be done through mobile vans.

He said that the concerned District Election Officers should visit such villages which had boycotted voting during Lok Sabha elections and encourage villagers to vote in the Assembly elections.