District Administration gets into poll mode

Mysuru: With the State set to face Assembly elections in the next three to four months, the District Administration has already got into the poll mode with District Electoral Officer and Deputy Commissioner D. Randeep holding a meeting with district-level officers and top Police officers here this morning. Addressing the meeting, Randeep instructed officials to follow the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) besides asking them to communicate only the information passed on to them by the Election Commission regarding the use of Electronic Voting Machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). Stating that there was a need for a critical analysis of the polling booths, the DC instructed the Police Department to conduct a preliminary assessment throughout the district in order to identify sensitive, hyper sensitive and normal polling booths. He also asked the officials to submit the report within four days. He asked the Police Department to make a list of vulnerable Police Stations based on the previous history of violence during elections. They have been instructed to check if voters were being threatened, bribed or was there influence of caste to vote for one particular candidate. Randeep told officials to come out with Polling Station Election Management Plan as a part of Election Security Management. Stating that an additional 12 polling booths would be setup to the already existing 2,687 booths in the District, he asked the Police to check if there were cases of violations by the accused, violation of Goonda Act, communal violence apart from collecting information on liquor movement and arms deposits. The Police were also told to inform the District Administration on possible disruption of peace during the election. Later, the DC asked the district level officials to check and submit a report as to why people were not using their voter ID card while casting votes. Additional DC T. Yogesh, MCC Commissioner G. Jagadeesha, SP Ravi D. Channannavar, Additional SP N. Rudramuni, AC Shivegowda, DCP (Law and Order) Vishnuvardhana, DCP (Crime and Traffic) Dr. Vikram V. Amathe, Tahsildar T. Ramesh Babu, Tahsildars of all taluks, Dy.SPs and other officials were present.