Three teams of the Election Commission of India (ECI) visited some districts of Karnataka and held meetings with the local officials to review the district-level preparations for upcoming Assembly polls. The visit was intended to find the possible reasons and solutions to poor voter turnout in the state during Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
The team led by Deputy Chief Commissioner of ECI, Ajay Badu, visited the Yadgiri district and conducted preliminary inspections of EVMs and VVPATs, here. He initiated the programs organized for voter awareness and held a meeting with Kalaburagi zone district commissioners regarding the pre-election preparations.
State Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena and Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Rajendra Cholan also participated in the said programme with the ECI's team.
Another team of ECI, led by its director Shubhra Saxena and Secretary B.C. Patra, visited the Chamarajanagar district and conducted the preliminary inspection of EVMs and VVPATs. There he initiated the programs organized for the awareness of the voters and held meeting with the Mysore zone district commissioners regarding pre-election preparations. State Additional Chief Electoral Officer Venkatesh Kumar also participated in the programme.
Meanwhile, the third team of ECI which was led by Santosh Ajmera met with the District Collectors and District Nodal Officers regarding the pre-poll preparations. Nodal Officer PS Vastrad was present on this occasion.
These teams of ECI arrived in the poll-bound state on Tuesday (February 7) and held a video conference with the Bengaluru zonal and district nodal officers.
The teams, on the first day, observed various types of first-phase preparatory work including polling booths and on the second day, they held a meeting with the District Collectors of respective zonal levels.
The senior officers of these teams arrived in Bengaluru on Thursday, led by the State Chief Electoral Officer, and held a meeting with the district officials of the Belagavi zone through video conference.
Later in the afternoon, they held a meeting with the district collector of the Bengaluru zone at Vidhan Souda and then moved back to the national capital.
The main objective of the meeting of ECI teams was to identify the polling stations with the lowest turnout in the last Assembly and Lok Sabha elections and then find out the reasons for the same and learn solutions to the problems through voting awareness.
It was further discussed to carry out the campaign on the voters' list including the identification of polling booths and development of necessary infrastructure, deployment of necessary officers/staff, and attracting more youth voters with the use of new technology.
Karnataka is slated to go for polls in the month of April-May this year.
( With inputs from ANI )
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