The District Election Office (DEO) has started issuing show cause notices to a mammoth 7,000 government employees found negligent in the discharge of their election duties.
The indicted employees have been directed to give explanation for their absence from the training. The DEO has found government staffers ranging from clerks to officials and other ranks avoiding election duties, and giving false excuses for not attending the mandatory election training exercise.
District collector and election officer Dr Suhas Diwase said that manpower remains a major challenge for conducting the elections, and retaining trained manpower on the polling day is of crucial importance. “At each polling station, there are a minimum of four staffers and at the eleventh hour, one is in need of more government staffers to complete the polling activity. Hence, additional manpower is made available to each of the centres for smooth conduct of polling. The training for the first phase is complete, and it has been noticed that many staffers are remaining absent for the leftover phases of training. We are going to keep a strict vigil on the total number of government staffers, who will remain present for training during the last week of April for the second phase of voting. After that, strict action will be taken. The process of issuing notices to those found absent from training duties has already been ordered,” he said.
Meanwhile, the district administration has also initiated suspension of six government employees belonging to the category of teachers, lower-rung staff, and officials for giving false reasons for not attending election training duties. The accused officials were earlier issued warnings by the district election authority that went unheeded, leading to the suspension proposal.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, the district administration has also initiated suspension of six government employees belonging to the category of teachers, lower-rung staff, and officials for giving false reasons for not attending election training duties. The accused officials were earlier issued warnings by the district election authority that went unheeded, leading to the suspension proposal.
{{/usCountry}}The Election Commission (EC) states that the disciplinary functions of the EC over officers, staff and police deputed to perform election duties shall extend to suspending any officer/official/police for insubordination or dereliction of duty; substituting any officer/official/police personnel by another such person, and returning the substituted individual to the cadre to which he belongs, with appropriate report on his conduct; and making recommendation to the competent authority, for taking disciplinary action, for any act of insubordination or dereliction of duty, while on election duty. The EC further states that such recommendation shall be promptly acted upon by the disciplinary authority, and the action taken will be communicated to the EC within a period of six months from the date of the EC’s recommendations, and the Government of India will advise the state governments that they too should follow these principles and decisions, since a large number of election officials are under their administrative control.
Pune district has four parliamentary constituencies with a large number of voters. There has been fresh registration of nearly one lakh voters, leading to an increase in the number of polling stations which currently stands at 8,213. Due to the unprecedented increase in the number of polling stations, there is requirement of large manpower for manning and supervising the centres for which training is essential. According to the DEO, the work of providing trained manpower to the DEO has been undertaken by the planning department of the district administration since November 2023. The administration has sought details of nearly 70,000 staffers belonging to government and semi-government departments online.