To ensure that voting would go smoothly in the state, chief electoral officer (CEO) Umesh Sinha had directed to carry on `mock drill’ of voting at all the polling stations one hour before start of polls on the scheduled day.
``The presiding officers in each of the polling centre would carry out mock drill at all the centre in presence of poll agents of respective candidates", disclosed Umesh Sinha. He said that 50 votes to different candidates including None Of The Above `NOTA’ should be casted on the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and a record of it should be maintained and a counter-sign should be made by the polling agents so that a record of whom the mock vote has been given should be maintained. He said that president officer should wait for the polling agents till 15-minutes before starting the mock drill and should also mentioned about it in the records.
Umesh Sinha said that in case any EVM gives problems, than it should be replaced with another EVM and once again the mock drill will be carried out to ensure that smooth polls could be ensured later on. He said that during mock drill, besides presiding officer, at least two polling officers, two polling agents of each Party should remain in the room to avoid any controversy. He claimed that the sector officers who will monitor the mock drill exercise would collect one copy of record from each polling centres. Umesh Sinha further reminded that returning officer would ensure that after completing the mock drill, the entire data will be erased from the machines before starting the polling for the day.
Meanwhile union minister and Congress candidate Salman Khurshid filed his nomination from Farukhabad constituency which goes to poll on April 24. Salman, who was accompanied by wife louis filed one set of his nomination, which was proposed by Anil Mishra, party sources said here. Besides, him independent candidates Manju and Brahmsaran also filed their nominations. BJP candidate from the constituency Mukesh Rajput and the Samajwadi Party candidate Rameshwar Singh Yadav have already filed their nominations. So far, seven persons have filed nominations for the seat.
Meanwhile, district authorities, on the directives of the Election Commission (EC), have served a notice to Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) candidate Haji Yakoob Qureshi from Moradabad for distributing free biryani among the voters on Wednesday. SDM(Sadar) served notice to Qureshi when the supporters of the BSP candidate distributed biryani at linepar village under Majhaula police station. Huge quantity biryani was also recovered from the spot. Earlier, Qureshi has been involved in distributing free petrol during his campaign recently.