© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Amid a raging political debate over the BJP’s ‘One Nation, One Election’ idea of holding simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and state Assemblies in the country, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, responding to a query if the Election Commission was ready for such an election, said Wednesday that the panel was “ready to conduct elections as per legal provisions”.
The CEC, who was briefing reporters in Bhopal on the preparations for the upcoming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, said, “Our work is to deliver the elections before time. That time has been stipulated in the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act.”
He said under the provisions of the RP Act, elections can be announced six months before the 5-year tenure of the government ends, and that a similar situation exists for the state Assemblies.
“According to the legal procedures, the Constitution and RP Act, we have a mandate to conduct the election and we are ready,” Kumar said.
Last Saturday, the Centre, citing “national interest”, named an eight-member high-level committee to “examine and make recommendations for holding simultaneous elections” to Lok Sabha, state Assemblies, municipalities and panchayats.
In Madhya Pradesh, there are a total of 230 Assembly seats including 47 reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) and 35 for Scheduled Castes (SC). There are a total of 5.52 crore voters in the state – 2.85 crore males, 2.67 crore females and 1,336 transgenders.
Both the ruling BJP and principal challenger Congress have been focusing on women voters with schemes centred around them. The EC has also been making efforts to bolster the women voter turnout in the elections.
“We have tried to make our electoral rolls inclusive… This time we have new voters at 18.86 lakh. This is a good number. We are also focusing on women voters… We have identified 6920 polling stations where their (women) polling is 10 per cent less than males, and are undertaking multiple awareness campaigns,” Kumar said.
The tribal seats in the state prove to be decisive as they constitute around 21 per cent of the population. The EC has focused on improving the turnout of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) by making polling centres every 2 km from the voters even in inaccessible rural areas.
Kumar said that in Madhya Pradesh there are three PVTGs which are the Sahariya, Bahriya and Baiha tribal groups.
On the demand for greater transparency in the elections, he said that webcasting will be undertaken in 50 per cent of the 64,523 polling stations in the state. Of these, 5,000 polling stations will be managed by women, 1150 by young electors and 200 by PwD (Person with Disability).
The Commission will conduct special campaigns in constituencies with poor turnouts. So far, the EC has identified 95 Assembly constituencies in 30 districts with turnouts less than the state average of 75.63 per cent.
“We have had meetings with the state enforcement agencies and the direction is very clear: We will not allow distribution of freebies. Our experience is that in the last few elections, the amount of seizures is increasing. We want an inducement-free, non-violent and transparent election,” Kumar said.
