Election Observer for Biswanath district K Veerabhadra Reddy holds meetings

A CORRESPONDENT

BISWANATH CHARIALI: Election Expenditure Observer for Biswanath district, K Veerabhadra Reddy, had a detailed meeting with officers-in-charge of various election related cells on Tuesday.

Reddy asked all the officers to be extra vigilant in keeping an account of election-related expenses of candidates. He said that under no circumstance should candidates exceed their expenditure ceiling of Rs. 30.8 lakh. He also asked the supervising personnel to keep a strict eye on expenditure that candidates incur on advertisements, both in print and electronic media. The Observer also took stock of how trained and prepared were the personnel of various cells. He also directed the District Election Officer to arrange as much training as needed for the personnel so as to enable them to discharge their respective duties better.

Reddy also gave briefings to the cell personnel on their respective responsibilities. Also present along with him were Biswanath Deputy Commissioner Pranab Kumar Sarmah, Superintendent of Police Rajen Singh and other top administrative officials of the district. Sarmah gave a detailed presentation to the Observer on the level of training and preparedness that were provided to various personnel by the district administration. Singh assured full cooperation of police administration for smooth conduct of the elections. Biswanath, Gohpur and Behali constituencies come under Biswanath district administration and will go for polls in the first phase, i.e, on March 27.

Meanwhile, against the backdrop of COVID 19, the Biswanath administration is walking the extra mile to ensure voters above the age of 80, differently-abled and corona-infected patients have the comfort of voting from their respective homes through postal ballot. The administration held a couple of special training sessions of the Booth Level Officers (BLO) and Supervisors where they were instructed to make door-to-door visits to every eligible voter and give them the option of availing this 'Vote from Home' facility.

"We are putting in every possible effort to ensure that not a single eligible voter is missed out from our outreach programme. We have strictly instructed the BLOs and Supervisors to take this 'Vote from Home' facility with utmost priority. Whether the eligible voters want to avail this facility or not is up to them, but our responsibility is to reach to every such voter at the earliest," said Ranjit Swargiary, Officer-in-charge of Postal Ballot (PB) Cell. According to him, till date the cell has received around 250 applications. Some applications have been found either incomplete or without supporting documents. To further ensure that no genuine voter is left out due to incomplete documents or so, Swargiary on Tuesday held another round of meeting with the BLOs and Supervisors and instructed them to revisit those homes of voters and seek fresh and complete forms and documents. With the objective to confirm that BLOs had visited homes of every eligible voter, Sanghamitra Bhagawati, Assisting Officer of PB Cell, made it mandatory on the part of them to submit a signed statement of those eligible voters who do not want to avail 'Vote from Home' facility. This instruction, according to Bhagawati, will make the outreach programme full-proof.

The three categories of eligible voters will have to apply for availing 'Vote from Home' facility by March 6 through the BLOs when they make a visit to their homes. The applicants will be required to fill form 12D, which will be later submitted to the PB Cell by the BLOs.

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