Jammu-The Election Commission will decide on holding Lok Sabha and Assembly elections together or separately in Jammu and Kashmir after reviewing the security situation and feedback from stakeholders, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said here on Wednesday.
He also rejected criticism about the “delay” in holding assembly elections in the Union Territory, saying delimitation and necessary legislative processes were completed by December 2023 only.
“The changes happened in December 2023 and we are in March We know our responsibilities and we are also aware that there should be no political vacuum and the elections should be held sooner,” he told reporters before wrapping up his three-day tour of Jammu and Kashmir to assess the preparedness for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
He said the Commission had taken feedback from stakeholders including political parties, security agencies and administration on holding assembly elections with the upcoming general elections.
“We reviewed whether the two elections will be held together or one after another. We will decide after reviewing the security situation and taking the feedback.
“We have taken feedback from everybody about how much security is required. Each candidate needs security cover (in J-K) so it (holding elections together) will have security implications,” the CEC said.
Kumar said the Commission is equally concerned about assembly and parliamentary elections.
“We had a meeting with representatives of national and regional political parties and questions were raised about the delay in holding of assembly polls. I want to clarify that there was no delay on the part of the Election Commission,” Kumar said.
He said the J-K Reorganisation Act came in 2019 followed by a delimitation commission which completed its exercise in 2022, recommending an increase of assembly seats from 107 to 114 including 24 seats for residents of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
“Now we have 90 assembly seats including nine seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes. There was no chance of holding elections as there was a dissonance between the J-K reorganisation act and the delimitation.
“We have to bring them together and that happened in December 2023 in the form of the J-K Reorganization (Amendment) Act,” he said.
Kumar said the amended act also included the recommendation of the delimitation commission to reserve two seats for migrants including a woman and another provision of one nomination for displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
‘GPS-enabled Tracking System In Poll Duty Vehicles’
In keeping with the directions of the Election Commission, Jammu and Kashmir’s election department will procure GPS-enabled tracking systems for 12,500 poll duty vehicles for the forthcoming parliamentary elections in the Union Territory.
J-K Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Pandurang K Pole has issued a request for proposal (RFP) for companies to procure GPS-enabled vehicle tracking systems for election duty vehicles.
GPS control rooms will be established at the offices of district electoral officers (DEOs) and the CEO for real-time tracking and monitoring of the movement of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) through the trackers installed in the vehicles carrying them, officials said.
This step is being taken for the end-to-end movement of all EVMs and VVPATs on the pre-poll and poll days to ensure careful monitoring at all times. Accordingly, all polling parties and sector officers’ vehicles will be fitted with GPS tracking devices, they said.
“As per the instructions of the Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding the transportation, storage and security of EVMs and VVPATs, it is imperative to streamline their handling, including reserve EVMs and VVPATs carried by sector officers for need-based replacement on the poll day,” Pole said in the RFP.
He said the GPS tracker devices along with all the necessary hardware are to be fitted and installed in the election duty vehicles. The tentative number of vehicles will be 12,500, he added.
To facilitate this, GPS control rooms will be set up at the DEO and CEO levels to monitor and track the movement of EVMs and VVPATs through the vehicle tracking system and other related infrastructure and applications.
“This is a tentative number, subject to change based on the actual requirements calculated after the declaration of elections. The installation of GPS tracker devices will be done inside the vehicles,” he explained.
The vehicles will be stationed at various locations across Jammu and Kashmir, with the specific locations provided by the respective DEOs, he added.
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