New Delhi, June 19 (IANS) The Election Commission of India (ECI) implemented many pioneering initiatives in the by-elections on Thursday, aimed at enhancing and modernising the electoral process while also keeping the convenience of voters as a key priority.

Many measures that saw their implementation for the first time included the provision of a mobile deposit facility for electors at all polling stations, an upgraded Voter Turnout sharing process, and 100 per cent Webcasting of polling stations to ensure constant vigil of the entire polling process and individual mock poll training of all Presiding Officers. Also, Special Summary Revision (SSR) of the Electoral Rolls was conducted before the bye-polls for the first time in nearly two decades.

These new initiatives were envisaged and initiated by the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi in the past few months.

By-polls were held at the ACs of 24-Kadi (SC) and 87-Visavadar in Gujarat, 35-Nilambur in Kerala, 64-Ludhiana West in Punjab and 80-Kaliganj in West Bengal. During these by-elections, polling was held at 1354 Polling Stations (PS) in the five ACs.

The roll-out of new initiatives in by-polls paves the way for the full introduction of all these measures in the forthcoming Bihar Assembly Elections.

For the first time, voters were able to avail of the mobile deposit facility provided by the ECI at the entrance of all polling stations. The measure is in recognition of the ubiquity of mobile phones in both urban and rural areas and the challenges faced by the voters, particularly the senior citizens, women, and PwD electors, as to where to leave their mobile phones before entering the polling station.

Simple pigeonhole boxes or jute bags were provided at the entrance door of the polling stations, where the voters deposited their mobile phones. Volunteers were deployed at the polling stations to facilitate the process.

The upgraded VTR sharing process was also successfully implemented, where the Presiding Officer of each polling station was able to directly enter voter turnout on the new ECINET App every two hours on polling day in order to reduce the time lag in the updation of the approximate polling trends. This was automatically aggregated at the constituency level. The approximate voting percentage trends were published every two hours as before.

The Commission also ensured 100 per cent webcasting of poll-day activities at all polling stations, except one, in the five bye-poll ACs. The webcasting was monitored to ensure that critical activities were taking place smoothly and there was no violation of the poll process. Dedicated monitoring teams at RO, DEO and CEO levels kept a strict vigil on the poll proceedings.

–IANS

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