ECI to use special EVMs in Tripura election

Agartala, Jan 17 (UNI) A team of Election Commission of India, headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N Gopalaswami, has assured introduction of the latest technology with special memory in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to ensure fair Tripura Assembly election.

Talking to media today after reviewing the entire poll preparation, including security measures, Mr Gopalaswami and three other Commissioners - Nabin B Chowala, Y S Khureshi and R Balakrishnan - said the Commission would take sufficient measures to conduct a model election in the state.

They, however, admitted that even after several rounds of rectifications, the electoral roll still contained some mistakes and the Commission would take all out effort to rectify the inaccuracies in the voters' list by next week.

While emphasising on free and fair election in the state, CEC Gopalaswami said altogether eight Observers would start visiting Tripura shortly, and adequate paramilitary forces would be deployed during the process.

"To contain the post-poll intimidation, we shall instruct the state authorities of all the three states - Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland - to make group counting avoiding individual polling booths," Mr Gopalaswami said.

The Commission had met the political parties, senior officials of the administration and Governor of Tripura and held separate meetings with Chief Electoral Officer, Chief Secretary and DGP at Raj Bhawan.

The ECI officials had also instructed the Chief Secretary to stop all activities, which might influence the voters and sympathise with the electorate following complaints of the Opposition parties during the meeting.

Meanwhile, the election department officials here said the Commission convened a meeting with Director General of Police (DGPs) and Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of all three poll-bound states of the region in Delhi on January 21 to review the overall law and order situation.

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