CEO holds meeting with political parties
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, January 13 2022:
Manipur's chief electoral officer (CEO) Rajesh Agrawal on Thursday convened a meeting with recognised national and state political parties at the Conference Hall of CEO, Lamphelpat during which he declared that meetings with political parties will be held weekly on a regular basis.
During the meeting, he briefed on various matters such as Model Code of Conduct, COVID Norms, Criminal Antecedents, Election Expenditure, EVMs & VVPATs, and Identity Proof for voting, among others.
Subsequent to enforcement of Model Code of Conduct (MCC), altogether 53,252 defacements have been removed so far from government, public private properties, he said and added photographs of political functionaries were also removed from government websites.
Political parties were also informed that no road show, Pad-yatra, cycle/bike/vehicle rally and procession, physical rally of political parties or probable candidates or any other group related to election shall be allowed till January 15.Rallies and meetings shall be allowed only in earmarked places and with prior permissions of district administration, he said.
Stating that election agents, polling agents and counting agents without double dose vaccination shall not be allowed on duty, Rajesh appealed to all political parties to check on the vaccination status of their respective polling agents.
He also informed that necessary arrangements would be made by the office of the CEO Manipur for COVID Vaccination.
The CEO further noted that as per Supreme Court Order, political parties /candidates should publish criminal antecedents in newspapers/TV on three occasions.
Booklet on Criminal Antecedents was also provided to the representatives of political parties.
For publishing criminal antecedents, a list of newspapers and TV channels will be notified soon, he added.
He also urged the candidates to appoint election expenditure agents to ensure timely filing of expenditure statements/accounts.
Regarding P-2 & P-3 polling stations, he also informed that intermediate strong rooms had been identified and would be notified to all candidates and political parties by DEOs.
Representatives of political parties also expressed their views, suggestions and grievances during the meeting.
Joint CEO Manipur Ramananda Nongmeikapam, joint CEO (II) Md S Daulat Khan and state nodal officer for Media and W Phajatombi Devi were also present during the meeting.