Return non-election cash seized immediately, ECI to Telangana poll officials

Hyderabad: The Election Commission of India (ECI) directed the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Telangana, Vikas Raj, and the other senior officials to release the seized cash which is not related to elections. The election officials have seized considerable amounts of cash during various election monitoring exercises, some of which are not related to election expenditure.

To make sure the public whose cash has been seized faces no more inconvenience the ECI has directed the release of such cash amounts after getting the clearance from district grievance committees.

The ECI, on Monday, was updated on the progress on the arrangements made so far, for conducting elections to the State Assembly of Telangana, scheduled for November 30. It instructed the state election machinery involved to tighten all loose ends with the nomination process about the start.

Lokesh Kumar, additional CEO, explained in detail the arrangements made regarding security, facilities for polling staff, complaint redressal mechanism, creation of integrated control room, strict implementation of Model Code of Conduct, popularising c-Vigil, identification of vulnerable areas for future deployment of forces, constitution of MCMC, virtual campaigning, uploading of affidavits, and strong room arrangements etc.

Sarfaraz Ahmad, joint CEO, detailed the status of electoral rolls, preparation of ASD (absentee, shifted and duplicate/death) lists, steps taken to prepare the marked copies of electoral rolls, preparation, distribution and monitoring of voter information slips and voter guide information.

Deputy CEO Satya Vani explained that all the DEOs and ROs were informed of the numbers of recognised political parties, unrecognised political parties, list of RUPPs (Registered Unrecognised Political Parties), common symbols allotted to RUPPs, list of approved free symbols and arrangements for online nominations in ENCORE and printing and distribution strategy for postal ballot papers.

Further, she said, instructions were given to EROs, ROs on ETPBs, and postal ballots to absentee voters that is, AVSC, AVPD, AVCO and AVES categories.

Nitesh Kumar Vyas, senior deputy election commissioner and Pankaj Srivastava, director (Expenditure) of ECI, directly interacted with all the DEOs, SPs, and CPs of Telangana, through a video conference from New Delhi.

Mahesh Bhagwat IPS, state expenditure monitoring nodal officer, Sanjay Kumar Jain, IPS, state police nodal officer, also informed the ECI of the various measures taken in this regard. Collectors, DEOs, and SPs from Nalgonda, Bhadradri, Jangaon, Warangal, Khammam, and GHMC participated in the meeting.