Deputy Chief E C to review Bengal election preparedness

Kolkata, Mar 11 (UNI) On a pre-poll recce, Deputy Chief Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan will hold a string of meetings with the Chief Electoral Officer and all District Returning Officers here on Monday to take stock of the progress in election preparedness.

CEO Deabsish Sen today said Mr Balakrisnan would also hold separate meetings with three Returning Officers.

The prominent agenda of the meeting was expected to be distribution of photo identity cards.

The EC had asked the CEO on March nine to put the task of maximising photo identity card coverage on top of the agenda by increasing mobile EPIC teams.

Mr Sen said the process of taking photographs of altogether 3.5 million voters, including the new ones, was expected to be completed by April six. At present mobile teams were taking about one lakh photographs a day, he said.

The CEO informed that the EC had given approval for 226 Returning Officers for 294 Assembly constituencies and five Assistant Returning Officers (ARO) for each of the constituency.

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