With the assembly election in Uttar Pradesh likely to be held early next year, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday completed the training of the district election officials who will be associated with the election process and the first-level checking (FLC) of Electronic Voting Machines.
The officers and personnel from 33 districts who will be managing the assembly election, were trained on technical and administrative procedures. Earlier, the ECI had conducted training of the district election officers of 21 districts from West UP in Gautam Buddha Nagar on August 19, and 21 districts of East UP in Varanasi on September 11. With the training of the officers of 33 districts in Lucknow the training of the personnels of all the 75 districts has been completed.
A workshop on FLC of EVMs was held in Lucknow under the chairmanship of Manish Garg, senior deputy election commissioner, Election Commission of India.
Addressing the officers, Garg said, the FLC is the initial and the most crucial stage of election preparations, and the district election officers should pay attention to election-related work from now on while holding regular reviews with their teams.
After the FLC, the list of the working machines should be shared with political parties. Every election process should be conducted with complete transparency and in accordance with the prescribed protocols, leaving no room for negligence at any level.
“Arrangements should be made for daily shredding and disposal of VVPAT slips according to the prescribed procedure. Later, when the political parties finalize candidates, this list should be made available to them before commissioning, ensuring transparency at every stage of the election process,” he said. UP chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa said, the preparations for the upcoming elections should be carried out with utmost seriousness and vigilance, and set schedule.
