Telangana polls: EC to distribute voter slips, monitor inducements through mobile app

Hyderabad, Oct 22: The Election Commission of India wants to ensure that the entire polling process in Telangana is free, fair and corruption free.

With cash and booze set to play a major role, the EC has come up with a series of measures to ensure that the whip is cracked.

This time the EC is using an application called C-Vigil. Through this Android application, the people can upload photographs and videos of the violations of the model code of conduct. This in turn would be monitored by the Election Commission. The EC says that within five minutes of a violation being reported, the returning officer of the constituency will have to pass on the information to the mobile unit.

This time the EC officials will distribute voter slips on the eve of the elections. Earlier it was the political parties which used to distribute the slips 48 hours prior to polling. The EC however decided to do away with this practise as it suspected that it would be misused to induce the voters or campaign at the last minute.

For the elections, 70,000 police officers and 275 companies of paramilitary forces are being deployed. This is in addition to the personnel of the state machinery, excise and income tax departments officials being deployed to monitor the polling process.

The agencies are also conducting vulnerability mapping and critical analysis of poll areas.

The source of the threat, incidents of intimidation are being taken into consideration based on past incidents. The commission would in turn launch confidence building measures in such areas by visiting and interacting with the voter.