The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : State govt. officials will also be presiding officers'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 29, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

State govt. officials will also be presiding officers'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, APRIL 28. The Chief Electoral Officer, Mrutyunjay Sarangi, today denied there was any move to appoint only officials of the Central Government as presiding officers for the May 10 Lok Sabha election.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Sarangi said State Government officials would also be made presiding officers. He was responding to apprehensions raised by associations of State Government staff. Also, there was no deliberate attempt to have an increased number of Central Government officials on poll duty, he said. However, it was natural that cities such as Chennai would have a larger number of Central Government officials, he said.

The stipulation of the Election Commission that 50 per cent of the personnel on poll duty should be from outside the district necessitated the involvement of more Central Government officials. This was not the first time Central Government officials were being pressed into poll duty, he said.

A meeting with the Home Secretary, the Public Secretary, the Director-General of Police and the Inspector-General (Elections) would be held tomorrow to identify sensitive constituencies.

Mr. Sarangi said he was yet to receive any information on the memorandum submitted by film star Rajnikant asking for security to his fans in the constituencies where the Pattali Makkal Katchi is in the fray.

Election observers were provided with video cameras. If they recorded poll offences, the police officer and revenue officer in charge of the polling station would be taken to task ``even after the election.''

Asking political parties not to encourage bogus voting, he warned that those found doing so would be taken into police custody. In Tamil Nadu, the size of the electorate was 4,72,55,649 including 2,39,86,470 women.

Totally, 571 candidates including 23 women were in the fray. The national parties had fielded 50 candidates, the State parties 58 and the registered unrecognised parties 72.

Around two lakh personnel were being deployed for polling duty. To enable voters to find out their names in the electoral rolls and identify their polling stations, the rolls for all 14 Assembly segments in Chennai were displayed through touch-screen kiosks in five places at the Anna Nagar Post Office, the Theagaraya Nagar Post Office, the Adyar Post Office and the Washermanpet Post Office.

The kiosks were being sponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry. A Labour department press note said the election day, May 10, should be a paid holiday for all employees of industrial, commercial establishments and shops.

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