The Election Commission is fully aware of the ground realities in Bastar brought about by left wing extremism (lWE) ahead of the lok Sabha polls, said Deputy Election Commissioner Sudhir Tripathi here on Tuesday.
"We would not be disclosing any information on force deployments for the conduct of polls in Bastar. We are doing everything to ensure free and fair polls in the region," he said while addressing a news conference.
Tripathi said that a detailed review was conducted by him regarding poll preparations in Chhattisgarh.
"I also had a meeting with the representatives of political parties. The Congress party representatives have demanded that GPS system be installed in vehicles on poll duty to track their movements," he said.
Tripathi said that sale of liquor had been banned in the state 48 hours before the conduct of polls and an effective monitoring machinery had been put in place by the Election Commission to check distribution of liquor during the period.
The Election Commission had also directed to streamline the offering of voter slips and all photo copies of photo identity cards had been banned to be used by the voters for voting, he said.
The candidates had also been allowed to e-file their affidavits with the directive that not a single column in the affidavit could be left blank, Tripathi said.
To a query on the Congress party's complaint about some government officers influencing the polls, Tripathi said that the Commission had asked the State Electoral Office to get the matter probed.
There was also a monitoring mechanism in place for social media campaigns of political parties, he said.
Regarding monitoring of poll expenditure being made by the candidates, Tripathi said that the Expenditure Observers and Assistant Expenditure Observers had already been appointed to keep a watch on expenditure being incurred by the candidates.
The political parties were also being distributed brochures by the Election Commission regarding EVMs, detailing their rights.