The Election Commission of India is visiting Jammu and Kashmir on January 27 to review the preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha and state legislative assembly elections.
As per the itinerary, the chief election commissioner Sunil Arora would chair a high-level meeting in Jammu on January 27 and January 28 with the state chief secretary, director general of police, home secretary, secretary education and secretary excise and others.
Ahead of the scheduled meeting, the office of the Election Commission has asked the state’s chief electoral officer to have a detailed power-point presentation, highlighting the preparedness of the state authorities vis-à-vis LS and assembly polls, ready.
The Election Commission, apart from other aspects, would review at length the progress and status of special summary revision (SSR) of electoral rolls 2019 on ERO-NET; mapping of PwD (persons with disability) electors and facilitation of accessible elections; communication plan for identification of ‘communication shadow zone’ and polling stations falling the shadow zone, strategy/action plan to cover shadow areas with BSNL; Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation Program plan and activities at state/district levels, preparation and dissemination of SVEEP materials and workshop with various stakeholders; Focus on Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail Action Plan; Status of polling stations including creation of auxiliary polling stations, assured minimum facilities and PwDs facilitation steps; preparation of state/district election management plan, and budget and financial management plan; Personnel management plan—preparation of database of polling personnel at district level and resource mapping/identification of central government officers/employees; Model code of conduct enforcement and monitoring; Detailed security management plan—vulnerability, mapping, availability and requirement of state police, BMP, home guards and central paramilitary forces; Mapping of sensitive assembly constituencies (ACs) based upon various factors (expenditure, law and order, LWE, vulnerability etc.); Use of IT applications—Suvidha, Samadhan, Sugam and C-vigil-resource-mapping of Android Mobile/video-cameras for live webcasting, district contract centre NGRS etc; Cascaded training plan—standardisation and preparation of training material and strategy to train master trainers and all other election related officials; Status of EVMs—availability and requirement of EVMs/WPATs, FLC plan and training of EVM/VVPAT; Election materials—procurement/printing and distribution; Postal ballot papers (ETPBs/postal ballots) and EDC, steps taken in districts in relation to the ETPBs/PBs/EDCs and its facilitation centres; Election expenditure monitoring system-formation of VST, VVT, SSTs, MCMC, DEMC etc; Media management plan—preparation of paid news, monitoring and media certification; implementation of commission’s transfer policy; filling up of vacancies of ROs, AROs in the PCs/ACs; Strengthening of the office of CEO and DEOs.
Pertinently, on November 22 last year, a day after governor Satya Pal Mailk dissolved the state assembly, the ECI had talked about possibility of holding parliament and assembly polls simultaneously. That time however the then chief election commissioner OP Rawat added a rider that the final decision on dates would be taken only after considering “all aspects”.
On January 2, union home minister Rajnath Singh said it is for the poll body (ECI) to decide when to hold the assembly elections in J&K.
Earlier last week, the governor revealed that all political parties in the state, barring Peoples Democratic Party, have expressed their support for holding both Lok Sabha and assembly polls simultaneously.
The state came under governor’s rule on June 19, 2018, after BJP pulled out of coalition with the PDP. After completion of six months of governor’s rule, J&K came under the president’s rule on December 19.