Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat said that all the necessary steps were being taken to ensure transparent polling in Telangana slated for December 7.
Rounding up three-day visit along with a team of officials to Telangana on Wednesday Rawat told the media that every thing was in place for the elections and special attention would be paid to prevent the flow of liquor and money during the elections.
“We heard the views of all the political parties in the state during our visit and had detailed discussions with the officials”, Rawat said adding that the arrangements were in place to ensure free and fair elections in the State.
During the three day visit Rawat and his team held a meeting with the representatives of all the political parties and received representations from them. The CEC also met the police officials including all the district superintendents of police and district collectors and reviewed the law and order situation. “We are satisfied with the working of the police and election officials”, he said.
Confirming that he received complaints of errors in the voters list, Rawat said that the measures were being taken to correct the lists.
Chief Election Commissioner also received the complained against some media organisations including newspapers and TV channels that were working in a biased manner and blatantly supporting one party against the other.
“We are looking into the complaints and will take appropriate action”, he added.
The officials were undertaking a campaign to create awareness among the voters about the Electronic Voting Machine sand the Voter Verifiable Paper Trail (VVPAT) to ensure that they are able to exercise the franchise in a correct way.
CEC’s direction to the officials to crackdown against the liquor and money
has come at a time when fears of use of money power by political parties to influence the voters were fueled by the flow of huge caches of cash.
Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are notorious for the large scale cash transactions during the polls and already this time the police have seized `12 crores from different districts including Adilabad, Medak, Khammam, Nalgonda and Hyderabad. `73 lakh were seized on Tuesday alone.
The single biggest seizure was reported from Adilabad where the static surveillance team of the police recovered `10 crore from a car coming from Maharashtra.
It was believed to be part of some hawala transaction. Other smaller amount running into lakh was also seized from other places in the district, as those carrying the cash were unable to give satisfactory explanation.
`30 lakh each were seized in two different cases in Khammam and Nalgonda districts. One of the seizures was again from a car with Maharashtra registration.