The Election Commission has chosen to set up every car used for voting in West Bengal with a GPS location tracking system, according to an official. He said today that a message in this regard has been forwarded to the poll workers.

The official said, the GPS tracking system will be used to monitor the movement of EVMs and other polling materials from the distribution/dispersion centre and receipt centre (DCRC) to the polling station on the day before the elections, and to ensure that no tampering occurs while bringing them to the strong room after polling.

In addition to questioning the drivers of the concerned vehicles and the workers responsible for the EVMs, the poll worker has requested that the administration act quickly in the event that a disparity is discovered, he said.

Meanwhile, major political parties are preparing for the polls, which will take place on various dates and in various stages across the states as the nation prepares for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The opposition INDIA Alliance, led by the Congress, is aiming its guns at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), targeting the party on issues like electoral bonds, abuse of independent agencies like the ED and CBI, and the arrest of Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren. Meanwhile, the BJP is holding rallies and roadshows with its roster of well-known campaigners.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to take part in a roadshow in Chennai as part of his campaign, for which extensive preparations have been made.

Additionally, the Congress party and the National Conference (NC), which make up the INDIA bloc, agreed a pre-poll seat-sharing pact for J&K and Ladakh on Monday, excluding the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the accord.

Joint Secretary in the Department of School Education Arnab Chatterjee was designated as the Joint Chief Electoral Officer by the commission.

Rahul Nath is succeeded by Chatterjee, according to an official order.

The state’s seven-phase Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to start on April 19.

The post Lok Sabha elections: EC to install GPS tracking system in vehicles used for polls appeared first on APN News.

The Election Commission of India has to take a call about holding by-polls to the eight assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh. A bypoll to a vacant seat in the state assembly is generally held within six months from the date of vacancy. However, EC has not yet given any indication about holding these bypolls. “For seats, where the six-month time period is complete, EC has given a certificate, saying a decision about holding the bypoll there will be taken later,” said an officer.

The Uttar Pradesh assembly has a strength of 403 members. The five members who died include two ministers Kamal Rani Varun, who held the Ghatampur seat in Kanpur Nagar district, and Chetan Chauhan, who represented Amroha’s Naugawan Sadat assembly constituency. While Varun died on August 2 after contracting Covid-19, Chetan Chauhan succumbed to the disease on August 16.

BJP’s Janmejaya Singh, Deoria Sadar MLA, died on August 21 and Veerendra Singh Sirohi, a Bulandshahar MLA, passed away on March 2. Samajwadi Party’s Paras Nath Yadav, who represented Malhani in Jaunpur, died on June 12.

The other seats declared vacant include the one that had been held by BJP member Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who was disqualified following the life sentence awarded to him in a rape case. His seat of  Bangarmau, Unnao, has been declared vacant with effect from December 20, 2019.

The Swar seat was declared vacant with effect from December 16, 2019 after the Allahabad high court declared the election of Samajwadi Party’s Mohammad Abdullah Azam invalid.

Earlier, the Tundla assembly seat of Firozabad was declared vacant on June 4 following the resignation of former UP minister SP Singh Baghel when he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Agra.

Read Also:AN UNEASY TRUCE: RAHUL LASHES OUT AT PARTY ‘DISSENTERS’

The Election Commission also will have to take a call about holding the biennial election to 11 seats of the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Parishad. The term of 11 MLCs from graduate and teachers constituency of the state legislative council ended on May 6. Another seat fell vacant in the council following disqualification of former BSP leader Naseemuddin Siddiqui, who had switched loyalties to the Congress.

The post VACANT ASSEMBLY SEATS: EC YET TO DECIDE ABOUT BY-POLLS appeared first on APN News.

Following his nomination as the Republican candidate for the November 3 presidential election, Donald Trump in his speech told Republicans to be on alert for what he claimed was a Democratic plan to rig the contest through increased use of mail-in voting, a measure Democrats say is needed to protect people from catching COVID-19 in crowded polling stations.

“They are trying to steal the election,” he told party delegates.

“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.”

Opponents say Trump’s increasingly extreme resistance to expanded mail-in voting, a method already used widely in the United States, is an attempt to suppress voter turnout, while setting up an excuse to challenge the result if he is defeated.

Trump hopes the convention, which concludes Thursday with his formal acceptance of the nomination, will shift voters’ attention from the coronavirus to what he says is the “super-V” shaped economic recovery.

As a veteran of reality TV, Trump is convinced that the more he gets on stage the better for changing the narrative in his favor.

So while incumbents usually keep away from their party conventions until the final night, Trump immediately took over the event in Charlotte, which had been drastically scaled back due to COVID-19 precautions.

He then flew to the North Carolina town of Mills River with his daughter Ivanka to give another speech, declaring “the great American comeback is underway.”

Trump is expected to make more live television appearances on each of the four days of the convention ahead of his acceptance speech at the White House. Trump’s use of the White House as a setting for the acceptance speech will be a dramatic show of political muscle, but it tramples over the custom of separating political campaigns from the office of president.

Beyond bread and butter issues, Trump’s abrasive style, his habit of insulting people in public, his demonization of journalists and almost total inability to talk to Democratic leaders has left the country divided and exhausted.

Read Also: BLOW TO PAK: GERMANY TURNS DOWN PAK’S REQUEST

Biden is tapping into unhappiness with the president’s handling of the pandemic, unrest over racial inequality and fear of longterm economic damage from the coronavirus shutdown. Biden is ahead in poll surveys but Republicans insist that Trump can replicate his surprise 2016 win and hope the convention will put the wind in his sails.

The post TRUMP TURNS COMBATIVE: DEMOCRATS WANT TO STEAL THE POLLS appeared first on APN News.

The contours of Election Commision’s new plan for elections in the “new normal” are being adopted even as political parties have offered varied suggestions to the constitutional body, from deferring polls altogether to holding them in one phase, from reverting to ballot papers to allowing physical and not just virtual rallies, and from increasing the limits on poll expenditure by candidates to exempting those expenses incurred while enhancing Covid-19 precautions.

While elections have taken place in other countries since the pandemic, including in Sri Lanka recently, elections in India have only been confined to polls to the Rajya Sabha and legislative council seats, which involve a limited set of voters. Experts believe that the election paradigm adopted for Bihar will have significant implications for political contests, and have a medium-term impact since other state elections are due in the middle of 2021.

Election Commission, which reviewed suggestions received from political parties for conducting elections to the 243-member Bihar assembly, is likely to issue the guidelines over the next three days. The guidelines will broadly centre around three primary subjects — polling stations, counting halls and public meetings.

A key area of concern for political parties is rallies, which have traditionally served as a key political tool for mobilising voters and communicating messages by leaders. With the pandemic and the push towards digital campaigning, parties have expressed concern that the direct interface with voters, especially those who lack digital access, will get affected if physical rallies are not allowed.

The BJP, which is part of the ruling dispensation in Bihar, has asked the poll panel to allow physical meetings and rallies in rural and semi-urban areas since voters may not have access to mobile devices and the internet. In its submission to EC, the party has said that all party workers, campaigners and leaders must have the Aarogya Setu app downloaded on their phones at all times, and adequate social distancing has to be maintained during roadshows and processions. Other parties such as the RJD and a BJP ally, the LJP,  have said that till physical rallies are not allowed, elections must not take place.

Read Also: NON GANDHI AS CONG CHIEF, SAYS PRIYANKA.

Arguing that digital campaigning and virtual rallies allow the ruling party an upper hand because these cost more money, the CPI and CPI-M have also demanded public meetings. The Congress has sought permission for house-to-house campaigns. In its submission to EC, the party said, “We are in favour of an election based on face-to-face campaign where the candidate and party workers can meet the voters.”

The post EC TO ISSUE GUIDELINES ON POLLS SOON appeared first on APN News.

Mudda speakers divided; while some feel motherboard-tinkering to rig elections impossible, others say older process a safer bet; but should conspiracy theories form the basis of a costly changeover by the state?

The Election Commission has held several meetings on how to improve the polling experience in the country. Among other things, use of EVMs, paper ballots and domestic migrant voting have been discussed. APN’s popular debate show, Mudda, took up the issue on Monday. Anchorperson Akshay Singh Gaur spoke to BJP’s Rajesh Jha, Congress’ Umashanker Pandey, RJD’s Balwant Kumar, former IAS officer Baba Hardev Singh and APN consultant Govind Pant Raju.

“It’s important to go in for reforms in the election process so that polls are conducted in a truly fair and non-partisan manner,” Hardev Singh said.

Pandey opined ballot paper voting seemed a better solution. “EVMs have inherent problems. In 2017, the EC conducted a show to prove that EVMs are tamper-proof, but could not convince the Congress.”

The BJP is all for simultaneous polls, as it would bypass all problems associated with multiple elections, like extra expenditure, more chances of rigging and disturbance to students, Jha said.

Balwant Kumar said:”RJD is against EVMs, as these are vulnerable to fraud. The Netherlands has gone back to paper ballot and in the US too, it is being used more and more.”

Akshay then asked if paper ballots don’t lead to booth capturing.

Raju said: “The EC had thrown an open challenge to all parties to prove that there has been EVM hacking. Why didn’t the parties go ahead and do so? We have already been witness to booth-capturing in the past. I don’t think that ballot papers are the way out. Whatever the issues are with EVMs, we can resolve them.”

Pandey said:”When ballot paper voting was used in the past, paramilitary forces were not deployed. In today’s scenario, there are enough paramilitary forces that can be put on duty. CCTV cameras can also be installed at polling stations.”

Hardev Singh said: “We have to ensure free and fair polls. EVM hacking is not easy. There might be a small margin for technical glitches. These are just rumours spread by parties to apply pressure and misguide people.”

“We have reason to believe that EVMs are not tamper-proof. They can be programmed to orchestrate desired results,” Pandey said.

Balwant Kumar said: “Software experts can easily tamper with the motherboard. With enhanced security and CCTV cameras, I am sure ballot paper voting will prove to be the right option.”

Raju then said that motherboard-tinkering was not an easy thing to do. “But political parties only look after their own interests when making such insinuations,” he added.

Hardev Singh said:”The local administration has to be on alert to prevent malpractices. But usually, by the time the local administration swings into action, the deed is already done.”

Balwant Kumar said: “In modern times, there are many ways parties influence voters. Fake news on social media and paid news are just two of them. So various factors come in the way of conducting a free and fair election.”

—Compiled by Niti Singh Bhandari

The post Paper ballot or EVMs? How should India vote? appeared first on APN News.