IPS officers turn poll observers

There is a slight change of role for a few Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in five states that go to polls in April-May this year.

Updated on: Mar 14, 2011, 24:42:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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There is a slight change of role for a few Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in five states that go to polls in April-May this year.

Normally, the IPS officers look after the law and order in an election area, whereas the in-charge of overall election management are Indian Administrative Officers.

However, this year, the Election Commission has deputed IPS officers as election observers, for the first time in the last many years, to monitor and manage the elections.

"We have deputed a number of IPS officers in West Bengal, where managing law and order will be an integral part of overall election management," said a senior election commission official.

Several districts in West Bengal such as Midnapore are naxal-affected. The two major political parties in the state, CPI-M and Trinamool Congress, have also been involved in violent clashes in the recent past. "We have been sending IPS officers to West Bengal even before elections were announced to access overall law and order situation and suggest necessary action," the official said.

The idea behind posting IPS officers as central election observers was to check the use of muscle power in elections, prevent any attempt to capture booths and help in deployment of Central Police Force being provided to the state chief electoral officers.

According to the commission's circular, an election observer has to provide inputs to the returning officers on how to conduct the elections in a fair manner; redress local grievances and ensure that the candidates follow the model code of conduct and electoral rules.

Although the maximum number of IPS officers, 21, have been posted as election observers in West Bengal, the commission has also deputed five IPS officers in Tamil Nadu, especially for Madurai — the bastion of DMK leader K Alagiri. They will also monitor elections in Chennai, Salem and Tiruchy.

Of the 1,000 observers appointed, the majority are IAS officers drawn from the Central and the state governments, which are not going to poll.

Apart from them, the commission has also appointed Indian Revenue Service officers as expenditure observers.

They will work in close tandem with the expenditure wing of the commission and will have powers to seek details of the special bank accounts the candidates are required to open for contesting the elections.

Chief election commissioner SY Quraishi said the role of observers were important, as they were the eyes and ears of the commission. All observers are required to submit daily report to the commission's central control room for elections.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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