E-Paper
Over 14k staff deployed at 2,921 polling booths in Ludhiana
Employees from Centre and state governments, banks and public sector undertakings assigned duties as presiding officers, assistant PRO and polling officers during the polls
As many as 14,095 employees were selected for polling duty at 2,921 polling booths in Ludhiana Lok Sabha constituency in the second stage of randomisation held here on Tuesday. The district administration conducted the second randomisation in the presence of general observer Divya Mittal and officials of the district administration at the NIC office.
As per the requirement, the employees have been assigned duty as counting, polling and supporting staff, besides utilising their services for micro-observers. The process was aimed at assigning duties to the staff for the polling schedule to take place on June 1.
Employees from Centre and state governments, banks and public sector undertakings were assigned several duties during the polls with 20% extra staff. They have been assigned duties as presiding officers (PRO), assistant PRO and polling officers (PO) during the polls. Adequate staff would also be deputed for counting to be held on June 4.
Additional district election officer-cum-additional deputy commissioner (General) Major Amit Sareen (retd), assistant commissioner (UT) Kritika Goyal abd DIO NIC Neeraj Garg among others were present during randomisation.
Keep vigil on paid news, ads: Mittal
General observer Divya Mittal visited the room of Media Certification and Monitoring Committee in district administrative complex on Monday. She directed the staff to intensify monitoring on social media platforms and to keep a close watch on the activities of print and electronic media related to the elections.
Accompanied by additional district election officer Amit Sareen and assistant commissioner (under training) Kritika Goyal, the general observer interacted with the Committee staff to gather information on issues, such as pre-certification, surveillance on paid news, and activities of candidates on social media platforms, including WhatsApp channels. She emphasised that all electioneering activities and advertisements, especially on news websites and web portals should be closely monitored by the social media surveillance teams.
Mittal said no candidate could release any advertisement on social media platforms without getting its content approved by the committee. She emphasised the need to track the authentic social media accounts as informed by the candidates at the time of filing nominations, so that necessary action could be initiated in case of any violation, as per the ECI directives. It was also highlighted that candidates and political parties should include all expenditures on campaigning, including advertisements on social media, payments made to companies and websites for carrying advertisements, and expenditures on campaign-related works on social media.
The general observer emphasised upon the need to scrutinise news content related to political parties and candidates in newspapers, so that suspected paid news could be traced and reported. The observer also inspected cases of pre-certification of political publicity material and advertisements given by the candidates in different assembly segments.
Later, she visited C-vigil and complaint and monitoring cells, and took stock of the complaints received so far. She also inquired about the functioning of the cells from the staff concerned.
