Election Commission decides to conduct GHMC elections with ballot papers

By Newsmeter Network  Published on  5 Oct 2020 12:42 PM GMT
Election Commission decides to conduct GHMC elections with ballot papers

Hyderabad: The Telangana State Election Commission (SEC) has decided to conduct the GHMC and other urban local bodies elections with ballot papers and boxes after deliberations with the political parties.

The SEC held a meeting with the GHMC commissioner to discuss conducting the elections. In the meeting, it was decided that all the political parties should be consulted about if they were in favour of ballot papers or EVMs. Accordingly, the political parties were requested to convey their opinion.

The SEC received over 26 replies and 16 of them were in favour of ballot boxes while 7 political parties didn’t give any definite option. Three political parties voted in favour of EVMs.

On September 30, Congress leader Marri Shashidar Reddy said the State Election Commission had not provided them with the scientific evaluation of using EVMs or ballot paper for the GHMC elections.

However, the state election commission announced that it was planning to introduce facial recognition system in at least 150 polling stations during the GHMC election. “At least one booth from each of the 10 wards will be used to experiment with the facial recognition,” the SEC said.

Meanwhile, the AIMIM is opposing the introduction of the facial recognition system alleging that the commission has taken the decision without consulting any political parties.

The dates of local bodies elections are yet be announced.

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