Agartala: Dec 21: A two-member delegation of the Election Commission of India has come to the state to check the poll preparations. The election commission delegation reached the state and spoke to the Chief Election Officer of Tripura Election Commission and made various inquiries. The Election Commission of India has appointed Special possessor Ranvir Singh and Santosh Ajmera to review Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation ahead of the Tripura Assembly elections.
The two-member delegation also looked into the benefits for disabled and elderly voters on the occasion of the Tripura Assembly elections. The delegation visited the state and reviewed the SVEEP plan and its existing facilities through video conference with Tripura Chief Electoral Officer Kiran Gitte, along with all District Election Officers. Additional CEOs, District Nodal Officers and other officials of the Election Department participated in this video conference. On this day, their preparation was presented through video conference. They gave some pointers and suggestions to improve voter awareness program of the state. In the 2013 assembly elections, the voter turnout was 91.82 percent. It decreased to 89.38 percent in 2018 assembly elections. Therefore, the Election Commission of India team directed the District Administrators to identify the low polling areas and find out the reasons, advised to undertake awareness program among people to observe higher voter turnout by 2013. District Election Officers have been directed to ensure that polling booths are equipped with ramps, wheel chairs, sign language volunteers, Braille ballot papers etc. so that the Divyangans can cast their votes conveniently.
The Chief Election Officer of the state informed the representatives that some special initiatives have been taken. In particular, it has been said to organize online quiz competitions, set up well-equipped polling stations, set up youth-led, women-led and PWD polling stations in every assembly constituency. The delegation will again leave the state for Delhi on Thursday. But meanwhile, another big issue has become that in the past elections, it was seen that the workers of various political parties cooperated to exercise their democratic rights by taking the blind or visually impaired people from their homes to the polling stations. But it also raises questions about the security of the vote. Many people have started raising questions as to whether any measures will be taken by the administration for those who are physically weak.
Meanwhile, according to sources, he has given all the instructions to the representatives of Tripura Election Commission after looking into all the preparations for the election in the state. After the delegation of the National Election Commission visited Tripura on November 22 and 23, the two delegations also examined the extent to which the administrative duties given to them had been completed. Apart from this, the issue of how much security should be provided in Tripura for the election and what arrangements are being made for the voters to go to the polling station safely has also been discussed. According to sources, the issue of how much security force personnel are required, how many booth-based security force personnel will be there, especially on the polling day. After looking into everything, the state administration is expected to give the green signal to announce the elections in the next few days.
