Imphal, January 01: To ensure free and fair elections, the Chief Electoral Officer, Manipur held a meeting with leaders of political parties today at the conference hall of Old Secretariat.

Later addressing a media persons at his office chamber Chief Electoral Officer RR Rashmi said that all preparations have been made for the upcoming three phase Assembly polls.

All the political parties were also instructed to abide by the model code of conduct.

Moreover, the political parties have been informed that each candidate can spend Rs 5 lakhs at the most and a candidate may use three vehicles excluding the vehicles of security escorts.

On the day of the election, they should not use more than two vehicles, conveyed the CEO.

Altogether 17,06,646 voters will exercise their franchise in 900 polling stations of hill districts and 1153 polling stations in the valley.

The revised electoral lists include 29,347 new voters while 15,357 invalid names were deleted.

In the first phase polling would be held in 714 polling stations, the second phase in 827 polling stations while the third phase will be held in 512.According to the revised electoral roll, the district wise number of voters stands as follow; Bishnupu-1,57,514; Imphal East2,88,894, Imphal West-3,18,933, Thoubal-2,57,693, Churachandpur-1,75,032, Ukhrul-99,834, Senapati-2,43,170, Tamenglong75,457 and Chandel-90,119.Meanwhile, a standing committee with the Deputy Commissioner as chairman has been constituted for Bishnupur district in connection for the forthcoming leaders.

SP of the district and representatives of National and regional political parties are the members of the committee, informed a DIPR release.

On the other hand, a training programme on use of electronic voting machines would be held at Bishnupur mini-Secretariat conference hall from January 12 to 19, it added.