Chief Electoral Officer K. Ravi Kumar has said that after scrutiny, 55 candidates are left in the fray for the elections of three parliamentary constituencies to be held for the seventh phase. He said that during scrutiny on Wednesday, nominations of 2 out of 17 candidates from Rajmahal (reserved for Scheduled Tribe) parliamentary constituency were cancelled. In this way, a total of 15 candidates are left from this parliamentary constituency. Whereas, out of 22 candidates nominated from Dumka (reserved for Scheduled Tribe) parliamentary constituency, nominations of 3 were rejected. Now 19 candidates are left here.
After scrutiny, nominations of maximum 8 candidates have been canceled from Godda parliamentary constituency. Now there are 21 candidates left. The last date for withdrawal of nomination is May 17. After that the actual number of candidates will be decided. He was holding a press conference at Nirvachan Sadan, Dhurva on Wednesday.
In response to a question, he said that as per the guidelines of the Election Commission, vigil is being done on the borders of other states connected to the polling areas in coordination with the concerned state. Checking is being done and action is being taken to seal the border. He said that since the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct, illegal materials and cash worth Rs 1 billion, 26 crore, 21 lakh have been seized in Jharkhand.
Meanwhile, the focus is on increasing voter turnout in the next fifth, sixth and seventh phase of Lok Sabha elections in Jharkhand. At a booth where there are more than 1200 voters, an additional polling worker will be provided from the reserve. Where there are more than 800 voters, the sector officer will be able to depute additional polling personnel as per requirement to assist the polling officer. The effort should be to ensure that a voter takes minimum time to cast his vote. The speed of voting can be increased and waiting time can be reduced.
To improve booth management, Master Trainers have been directed to include polling personnel including BLOs, volunteers and members of polling station awareness group in the training module. He said that at polling stations where voting is possible till after 5 pm, generators are also being arranged for adequate lighting at the marked booths. At the same time, sweep activities are also being intensified regarding voter awareness. Emphasis is being laid on motivating voters to vote at the micro level. The CEO was reviewing the election management of the upcoming phases based on the inputs of the fourth phase of voting through video conferencing today.
He said that the Election Commission of India has given detailed guidelines on every point of the voting process. Every possible effort should be made that no voter faces any kind of problem in exercising his/her franchise and the voting process remains smooth and orderly. No voter should have to wait unnecessarily in the queue for a long time. For this, it is necessary that the voting process should be fast by paying special attention to the number of voters in the polling station. For this, all polling workers and sector officials will have to be especially alert and fulfill their responsibilities. He said that if there is any doubt in this regard at any level, the District Election Officer will immediately resolve it.
He informed that the experts of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra Ranchi will analyze the data obtained by conducting a time line motion study of the voting process to be held in Chatra, Hazaribagh and Koderma parliamentary constituencies in the fifth phase on April 20, 2024. In this, the team of Principal Investigator Dr. Kriti Abhishek, Vishal Shah and Dr. Manish Kumar Pandey of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi will be there. The results obtained from this study will be used in the upcoming elections.
Additional Chief Electoral Officers Dr. Neha Arora and Sandeep Singh and OSD Geeta Choubey were present during the video conferencing.
