Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Representatives of the political parties met Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Monday. The CEC heard their suggestions and requests relating to the Assembly elections slated later this year.
While Congress raised the issue of duplicity of names in voters’ list, the BJP leaders sought clear guidelines on hate speech. BJP delegation comprising state coordinator for election commission coordination department SS Uppal, state coordinator of law cell Manoj Dwivedi and others handed over a six-point memorandum to CEC.
The party leaders, stating that there was no clear definition of hate speech, sought the election commission to lay clear guidelines on the matter so that appropriate action can be taken against the offenders.
The Delegation also expressed concern over one of the tools of Artificial Intelligence that can create actual photo, video and audio and this has the capacity to misguide the voters.
To control the dangers related to AI, the Election Commission should come up with necessary rule and issue guidelines, said the BJP leaders. The BJP delegation also sought information over the creation of new voting centers and the number of voters to be enrolled there.
Former CM Digvijaya Singh who led the Congress delegation to CEC said that wherever election outcome is decided by less than 1000 votes, there recounting should be done and then only election result should be declared.
CCTV cameras should be installed at all voter centers, at least at the main entrance gate so that all kinds of activities could be brought under the scanner, said the senior Congress leader.
Coloured voter list should be provided to the candidate during the election, after declaration of elections, no names should be added or deleted from the voter list, the delegation said.
Congress said that BJP has declared 39 candidates and have begun canvassing even when model code of conduct is yet to be enforced and so their campaigning expenditure should be monitored and added to their election expenditure. The government programmes being done in favour of declared BJP candidates should be stopped.
The Congress delegation also demanded permission to use more than one loud speaker on vehicles during canvassing as currently, only one loudspeaker is allowed on a vehicle.
As the assembly constituency remains big hence as per the requirement of the candidate, loud speaker use permission should be granted, they added.
The delegation of the central election squad led by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar reached Bhopal on Monday.
The squad comprises Election Commissioners Arun Goel and Anup Chandra Pandey, Director General (IT) Dr Nita Verma, Deputy Election Commissioner Ajay Bhadoo and Election Secretary Pawan Diwan.
The election commission squad will remain in state till September 6. It will review the law and order situation of the state along with other things for holding free and fire assembly elections.
Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan received the visiting members of the Election Commission at the airport.
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