Review of Lok Sabha, Assembly elections preparedness in J&K

Jammu, Jan 30: Jammu and Kashmir's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Shailendra Kumar Tuesday interacted with the district election officers through video conferencing and reviewed the progress of preparations for the impending Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the state.

The CEO had detailed briefing from every Deputy commissioner about the steps initiated for the smooth conduct of elections and implementation of various instructions and advisories conveyed to them by the CEO office in previous meetings, an official spokesperson said. He called for putting in place all election-related arrangements well in advance in their districts and plugging the gaps, if any, in time.

The CEO stressed on the need for stepping up of awareness campaign to educate people about the importance of exercising their franchise.

He sought initiating training programme for all stakeholders about operation of EVMs and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) and educating the masses about the reformative measures taken by the Election Commission to ensure fair, free and transparent elections.

He asked the deputy commissioners to hold regular interactions with the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to get ground-level feedback about the election activities and addressing problems, if any, on priority basis.

The other important issues discussed included, block-level election management plan, facilities at polling stations and webcasting from polling stations, the spokesperson said.

PTI