*Polling parties, stations to be constantly on radar
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Nov 19: Keeping in view sensitivity of election process in Jammu and Kashmir, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has, for the first time, introduced new mechanism to track election process in the State whereby polling parties and polling stations would be constantly on the radar of the Commission. In this connection, Commission has established a Special Cell at New Delhi to get timely information about every activity from pre-poll to after poll stage.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that SMS based poll monitoring system developed by Information Technology Team of the Election Commission of India has been introduced for the forthcoming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Though this system was used in various States across the country, the same has been introduced in Jammu and Kashmir for the first time.
“It is an event based management system from the time of dispatch of the polling parties along with polling material till the time of deposition of election material after return of parties”, sources said. Since polling parties will be dispatched even in remote locations, the challenge is to get the information timely and the same will be taken care of through this system, they added.
The ECI has established a special cell in New Delhi which will monitor the movement of polling parties and in case of delay or any issue the District Election Officer concerned will get a direct call from ECI for immediate intervention and also for explaining reasons for delay in reaching of poll parties, sources informed. All the events of predetermined nature like polling party dispatched and arrived and that of non-predetermined nature like incidents of violence would be recorded into the system for prompt action.
Under this mechanism, the Election Commission would directly monitor dispatch of polling parties from dispatch centre at Returning Officer/Constituency level and arrival on destination. The polling parties will send SMS’ on evening before poll day indicating conducive conditions at polling station, at 7 am on poll day indicating arrival inside polling booth and establishment of polling stations, at 7.15 am regarding mock poll, at 8 am for start of mock poll and thereafter SMS report regarding turnout after every 2 hours.
At the close of poll SMS indicating number of persons still standing in queue, then SMS after closure of poll process, after that SMS when poll party started return from polling station and accordingly on arrival at district strong room are also part of this mechanism, sources said.
“In this way, the entire movement of polling parties will be monitored to do away with any chances of parties halting on the way or receiving information about any incident or protest halting them on way which require immediate action”, they further said. The Election Commission has obtained detailed transport plan and communication plan from all the District Election Officers, which will serve as standard guide to monitor the movement of polling parties in a time bound manner.
The system is more or less automated and refined to handle the vast volumes of SMS. The ECI and Chief Electoral Officer could anytime access the full data and view customized reports and data for themselves based on their user rights. The reports could also be filtered based on the officer’s needs, sources informed.
“There are more than 10,000 polling stations in State as such around 55,000 officials as members of polling parties and around 1,35,000 security forces personnel would be deployed and movement of all these parties will be tracked by ECI on real time basis and also placing the same on geographic map of the areas in Assembly segments to ascertain the situation”, sources said.
In response to a question, sources said that SMS monitoring cells are also being established in the offices of all DEOs in State. Moreover, cellular number of all polling personnel have been compiled and reserve SIM cards have been procured for providing to such polling parties where there is any issue regarding lack of mobile number with Presiding Officers.
“In case of failure of SMS on designated time, DEO and Zonal Magistrate will get an alert to respond”, they said, adding “Zonal and Sector Magistrates have been directed to ensure that all the polling stations in their areas respond to the SMS poll code”.
When asked why SMS mechanism is being used, sources said, “SMS is a very easy and convenient technology that can be used for a wide range of applications. It has the widest reach of all the mobile technologies today”, adding “alternate arrangements have also been made to get all the desired information in case SMS don’t work”.
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