Five police observers will be deployed in Haryana to ensure free and fair elections during the Assembly polls in the State on October 15 .
The Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath on Saturday said that for the first time, five police observers will be deployed in the State to ensure free, fair and clean polling in Haryana. The Commission would try to get maximum possible force from the Centre for the ensuing Vidhan Sabha polls.
Sampath while addressing a press conference here shortly after holding meetings with political parties, Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Director General of Police, Deputy Commissioners, Superintendents of Police, and other senior officers of the State Government said that the Commission has taken a major voter facilitation initiative according to which polling would start at 7 am and continue till 6 pm on the day of voting.
Commission has issued directions that single-window system should be made functional to issue permissions.Vulnerability mapping will be done and sensitive and hyper sensitive polling booths are being identified after taking inputs from candidates. Also, voter slips would be distributed ahead of the poll day, he said.
Sampath said it had also been decided to promote and monitor turnout of postal ballots among the staff and security personnel. Directions have been issued for a vigorous campaign to ensure higher voter turn-out which may be more than 80 per cent.He informed that cash amounting to Rs1.67 crore has been seized in the State. Similarly, massive quantity of 26,723.04 litres of liquor worth Rs6 crore and 4,897 kilo of drugs like poppy husk have been seized in the State.
As many as 32 notices have been issued concerning paid news out of which 26 have been confirmed. Distribution of food and liquor would not be allowed, he added.Asked to comment on the action to be taken by the Commission on the election campaign by the INlD leader Om Prakash Chautala, Sampath said that Chautala was campaigning as a star campaigner of his political party. It is for the court to take cognizance of the matter.
He said that the Commission had also streamlined the procedure of postal ballots. As many as 270 flying squads had been deployed to check the flow of money and liquor. Apart from 46 General Observers, 21 Expenditure Observers have also been deployed in the state, he added.More than 1.62 crore people, including 88.06 lakh males and 75.12 lakh females, would exercise their right to franchise in the Vidhan Sabha elections in the State.
EPIC coverage is 100 per cent. There are 16,357 polling stations in the state and the number of contesting candidates is 1,351, added Sampat.