The Hindu : EC to review poll preparedness today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 04, 2004

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EC to review poll preparedness today

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 3. The Election Commission has convened a meeting here tomorrow of the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of all States and Union Territories to review the preparations for holding the elections.

To be presided over by the Chief Election Commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh, (who is due to retire on February 7), the meeting would discuss, among other things, the progress in the revision of the electoral rolls, issue of photo identity cards, requirement of polling staff and availability of electronic voting machines. The CEC-designate, T. S. Krishnamurthy, the Election Commissioner, B. B. Tandon, and other senior officials will address the State officials.

Sources said that before finalising the election schedule, the Commission would have a discussion with the Union Home Secretary on deployment of the Central para-military forces.

At the last meeting in January, the Commission had urged the CEOs to ensure that the electoral rolls were reasonably perfect before the formal election process was set in motion.

The exercise of the revision of electoral rolls is now on in all States, except Andhra Pradesh where the final rolls are ready. The final publication of the electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh was scheduled on March 20 and if the progress was satisfactory, the Commission could finalise the poll schedule by the last week of February, the sources said.

On Tamil Nadu, the sources said the Commission had granted time till February 11 to finalise the rolls after two teams which inspected the rolls found large-scale inclusion of names and the number of voters to the total population in the State exceeding well above the national average of 65 per cent.

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