Major opposition political parties here on Tuesday met State Election Commissioner NN Pandey to discuss the issue of allotment of vehicles for promotional activities involving ‘Star Campaigners’ and other related technicalities for the upcoming civic poll-2018.
Members of opposition parties- Indian National Congress (INC), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Jharkhand Vikash Morcha (JVM-P) and Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) expressed their discontentment over the new guidelines over submitting details and seeking permission regarding campaigning involving celebrities and use of vehicles in such promotional activity from the district administration officials.
A week back, the district administration had issued a communiqué regarding submitting an application for getting approval for total number of vehicles to be used by ‘Star Campaigners’ in different promotional activities by respective political parties.
Parties said that they are finding it highly difficult to follow the guidelines as it involves several steps. Congress spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, who was part of the delegation, said that a complicated process for using vehicles for campaigning has been introduced this time.
“Earlier, we used to submit the details about ‘Star Campaigners’ vehicles for road shows, rallies to the State Election Commission directly, be it for lok Sabha election or Vidhan Sabha election but this time norms have been changed. We are national parties; we had submitted the details to the commission sometime back. Now, it is their responsibility to handle the issue,” he said.
Ranjan further added that the State Election Commissioner after listening to the plea has assured the opposition parties that no further problem or any confusion will prevail regarding the ‘Star Campaigners’ activities, use of vehicles by them and other related technical aspects.
“The Commissioner has said that he will discuss the issue with the Returning Officers (ROs) covering all technical aspects regarding this. In a while, we will get the clarification from the Commission on this issue,” Ranjan further added.
Meanwhile, training of polling personnel involved for civic polls started on Tuesday at Birsa Munda Footfall Stadium, Morhabadi.
The training session involving technical briefing about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), ballot unit, use and dispatch of different documents was conducted under the guidance of 21 master trainers.
This year, one presiding officer and six polling officers will be present at every pooling booth.
The two hours’ training programme was divided into theory and practical sessions where all technical know-how of handling EVM, including dispatch of documents, final binding process was learnt by the personnel of Ranchi and Bundu.
The training of polling personnel will continue till April 12. An officer present on the occasion said that if required, the training session can be further extended.
ADM (Naxal), Poonam Jha, while interacting with the polling personnel, instructed them to understand the technicalities well.
“From handling machines, ballot unit procedure to sealing and final dispatch must be understood well to avoid confusion on the polling day by the polling personnel,” Jha said.