Poll stations, rolls to be in sync with delimitation: CEO Anurag Goel

FLC of EVMs, VVPATs begins today

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Following an instruction from the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Election Department, Assam, will start the FLC (first-level checking) of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) tomorrow for the ensuing Lok Sabha election. Immediately following this exercise will be the finalization of polling stations and the special summary revision (SSR) of the photo electoral roll for 2024.

The Chief Electoral Officer of the state Anurag Goel, informed the media of this today. According to Goel, the finalization of the polling stations and the SSR 2024 are very crucial since they are going to happen in the state immediately after a constituency delimitation exercise in the state.

Addressing a press conference at Dispur today, Goel said, As part of the preparation for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, we are going to start the FLC of EVMs and VVPATs from tomorrow in 50 election districts in the state in phases. The exercise will start in 11 districts tomorrow. We will complete the exercise by September 19. ECIL (Electronic Corporation of India Ltd.) engineers have already arrived in the state to check the EVMs and VVPATs in the election districts in the presence of representatives of national and state political parties. During the FLC, all parameters of the EVMs and VVPATs will come under scrutiny. We will keep the EVMs and VVPATs, which will test right, in the stock room under CCTV and police surveillance. And we will send the EVMs and VVPATs that fail the test to the ECIL in Hyderabad. We will also conduct the mock poll during the FLC."

On the possible number of polling stations, Goel said, "Since the 2024 Lok Sabha election will be in accordance with the delimited constituencies, the polling stations and voter allocation will be done afresh. This is because the boundaries of the constituencies have changed. Even the names of some of the constituencies have changed. However, according to our estimation, the polling stations of around 80 percent of the electors will remain the same as before. Since a big and critical exercise is going to happen in the state, the ECI has frozen the electoral roll in the state. We need to reorganize the polling stations as per the delimitation order. According to the order of the Election Commission, we can include a maximum of 1,500 electors in a polling station. However, we will include a maximum of 1,400 electors in each polling station now so that in the event of an increase in the number of electors in the future, we need not set up auxiliary polling stations. We will start the reorganization of polling stations at the end of September and publish the final draft of polling stations by October 26-27 this year. We will share the draft polling stations with the political parties, seeking their opinions, if any. With approval from the Election Commission of India, we will publish the final list of polling stations on November 10, 2023."

On the SSR-2024, Goel said, "This will not be a normal SSR that will change from head to toe because of the delimitation exercise. It will be a very critical exercise as we will have to shift to a new database from the existing one through technology. The Election Commission of India has engaged TCS (Tata Consultancy Service) to provide us with technological support. TCS is now updating the control table. We will publish the draft photo electoral roll for 2024 on December 1, 2023. The public can submit their claims and objections regarding inclusion, deletion, shifting of electors, etc., from December 1 to 31, 2023. We will dispose of the claims and objections by January 15, 2024, and publish the final photo electoral roll on January 31, 2024."

The ECI published the final delimitation of constituencies on August 11, 2023, and the President of India gave her approval on it on August 16.

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