Conduct of local body elections through EVMs is a major challenge. This was stated by State Election Commissioner R Parasuram, while inaugurating a 5-day training in EVM functioning and operation to master-trainers from all districts at the office of State Election Commission on Friday.
Parasuram said that local body elections will be conducted through EVMs for the first time. Role of officers and employees is very important in this. In this training programme, they will be introduced to EVMs developed by the Electronics Corporation of India (ECI). They will also get the opportunity to acquire detailed theoretical and practical knowledge about functioning and operation of electronic voting machines.
The State Election Commissioner said that the EVMs to be used in urban body and 3-tier Panchayat elections are ultra modern. Through the machines having a number of features, votes for 8 posts can be cast. Apart from ballot units and control unit, detachable memory unit (DMU) is also an important part of these EVMs.
He said that last urban body elections were held 20 years ago in 1994 as per the then system in the state and ensuing elections through EVMs will bring about a fundamental change. Hoping for participation of large number of voters in ensuing local body elections, he said that these elections will be conducted easily and smoothly through the new system.
Secretary GP Shrivastava informed about the objectives of the training. The ICIl’s officer SB Purohit apprised the trainees about EVMs’ functioning and operation. A film and presentation on EVMs prepared by the commission for district election officers (local elections) was also made.
Elections will be held for 268 posts of urban body chairpersons and 5,059 corporators. Similarly, elections will also be held for 843 members of Zila Panchayats, 6,816 members of Janpad Panchayats, 22 thousand 795 sarpanchas and 3 lakh 63 thousand 337 panchas.
On the first day, 5 master-trainers each from Morena, Sheopur, Bhind, Rewa and Sidhi districts participated in the first session of training and 10 master-trainers each from Singrauli, Satna, Shahdol, Anuppur and Umaria districts in the second session.
Parasuram also released books of instructions for registration officers and book of guidelines for authorised officers on the occasion.