EC expresses satisfaction on poll preparedness for polls

: The Election Commission Friday expressed satisfaction on the level of preparedness for the December 7 assembly elections in Telangana.

There would be 32,796 polling stations and average number of electors per polling station will be 856, Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat told reporters here.

The Commission earlier visited the state about a month ago.

"Things have improved considerably and Commission expresses satisfaction on the level of preparedness (for the polls) in Telangana as on date," he said.

The Chief Electoral Officer, district election officers and SPs have done hard work and applied themselves to all those areas which were identified for further improvement on election preparedness, he said.

All polling stations would have Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. "This time 100 per cent polling stations will be covered by VVPAT machines," he said.

The election machinery has already seized unaccounted money of Rs 77.80 crore whereas in 2014, the total seizure was Rs 76 crore during the whole election period.

Rawat said the Commission has taken steps to identify duplicate names.

He was speaking after the commission reviewed poll preparedness in the state on Thursday and Friday with political parties and officials.

Asked about some former Chief Election Commissioners reportedly expressing views that EVMs were not 100 per cent tamper-proof, he said nothing could be done to the machines "with the security regimen which the Commission has prescribed."
Asked about the objection raised by some parties about pink ballot being used on the EVM as pink is used by a party in Telangana, he said the "complaint came rather late in the day."