Parties told to cooperate for fair poll

Tribune News Service
Jammu, March 13

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), J&K, Shailendra Kumar on Wednesday interacted with the representatives of recognised political parties in the state and discussed matters relating to the conduct of parliamentary elections.

Seeking cooperation of the political parties to ensure transparency in the electoral process, the CEO urged them to abide by the guidelines of the Election Commission of India with regard to the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct.

He urged them to make use of the Election Commission’s App ‘C-Vigil’, which deals with the complaints of violation of the code by any department, political party or any individual. He said the complaints could be filed online and would be dealt with by the EC quickly. He also urged the parties to make optimal use of the Suvidha App to avail online facilities for seeking permission or registration related to the election process from the election authorities. 

The CEO said the facilities had been created by the Election Commission to provide instant assistance to the political parties.

Shailendra assured the political parties of all necessary assistance for the election process by the state election department and asked them to bring any difficulty to his notice. He also briefed them about some new initiatives of the Election Commission for ensuring free, fair and transparent elections across the state. 

He said the district election authorities had organised training programmes for the political workers and block-level agents on the use of EVMs/VVPATs and other election-related activities, enabling them to educate the voters about the same. 

He informed the parties that new electoral rolls had been made available to all the parties for their information. He said the manuals of other important guidelines related to the electoral process issued by the EC from time to time would be made available to them for their information.