Preparation of electoral rolls post-delimitation tough exercise: Assam CEO

From August to December last year, our officials went through the entire process of shifting places and names in an election commission software.We have to say that the exercise was successful as not a single voter was left out, he said.Elections to all 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state will be held in three phases on April 19, 26 and May 7.

Assam Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Goel on Sunday said that preparation of the voter list post-delimitation in the state was a tough exercise.

He said the state is fully prepared to conduct the Lok Sabha elections in a free and fair manner.

Addressing a press conference here, Goel said, ''Post-delimitation, preparation of the electoral rolls was a tough exercise. From August to December last year, our officials went through the entire process of shifting places and names in an election commission software.

''We have to say that the exercise was successful as not a single voter was left out,'' he said.

Elections to all 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state will be held in three phases on April 19, 26 and May 7. The counting of votes will be on June 4.

This will be the first poll in the state after delimitation of constituencies was carried out last year.

Speaking on the preparation for the LS elections, Goel said, ''We are ready for the polls. Sixty companies of central security forces have been deployed in the state in the run-up to the polls, and more will be sent as per requirement.'' According to the voter list published last month, the total electoral strength in Assam is 2,43,01,960, comprising 1,21,22,188 female and 414 trans-genders, Goel said.

The state has 4,854 voters above 100 years of age.

''The process of inclusion of new names and other changes is still going on. So, the final voter list will be out in due course,'' the CEO said.

He also said there would be 28,650 polling stations in the state but refused to divulge the number of sensitive booths.

Webcasting arrangements will be made in 55 per cent of the polling stations, while GPS-tracking devices will be installed in all vehicles transporting EVMs.

Goel said there would be 262 model polling stations, while 1,409 would be managed by women only and at least one polling booth in each assembly constituency is to be managed solely by persons with disabilities.

All arrangements ranging from monitoring of expenditure to training of personnel and other requirements are being taken care of, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)