The Election Commission of India (ECI) has started preparing for the crucial 2022 UP Assembly polls by announcing its schedule to categorise polling booths. The determination of new polling booths and polling centres will commence from August 17 and after seeking objections from political parties and others, a final list of polling booths would be announced by August 23.
District magistrates are to resolve all complaints over polling booths by September 7 and then submit their final list to the ECI by September 20. The state ECI office will send the final list to the ECI in Delhi by September 25.
On the other hand, in view of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, the ECI has announced that elderly voters above the age of 80 years and differently-abled will be given the facility of voting from home. Elderly and handicapped voters will be able to cast their votes through postal ballots this time. Polling party will visit their homes and collect the postal ballots. The number of voters above 80 years of age in the state is around 23 lakh while handicapped voters account for nine lakh. The ECI has directed district magistrates to conduct door-to-door verification of all these.
Chief Electoral Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla along with all the DMs, ADMs and SDMs of the state held the first major meeting through video conferencing on Wednesday evening and took stock of the preparations and informed about the new instructions.
Shukla said that after verifying the elderly and differently-abled voters, 12-D forms would be given to the voters willing to cast a postal ballot by going to their homes and asked officials to confirm polling booths and polling centers at the earliest.
In view of the pandemic, the ECI has now instructed officials to make one polling booth for 1,200 voters instead of 1,500.They have also been asked to shift polling centres where the number of booths are more. There are two polling centres in Bareilly and Gonda where there are 23 polling booths each. Instructions have also been given to shift them to another place.
The ECI has asked officials to re-inspect all the polling centres where there are more than 10 polling booths. While setting up new polling centres, it has also been asked to keep in mind the minimum facilities there. Also, while fixing the booth, it has been asked to keep in mind that all the members of the family residing in a house should vote at the same place.
The chief electoral officer asked all district magistrates to pay special attention to the voter list and those areas where voters were increasing or being deleted in unexpected ways. District magistrates were also asked to keep a tab on areas where more than 40 per cent of voter forms had been cancelled. Where the ratio of female-male voters is less, instructions have been given to increase them. At present, there are 852 female voters for 1,000 males in UP’s voter list.
The election commission has sought information about the progress made in the FIRs registered in the 2017 Assembly elections and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The chief electoral officer asked district magistrates to inform the election commission after getting detailed information about all these cases and if they were not resolved, they have to get it done immediately.