Review meeting held to assess Election Preparedness in Chandigarh Parliamentary Constituency

Chandigarh, 29th April 2019: A meeting was held today under the chairmanship of Smt. Monimala Phokan Borthakur, IAS and Sh. JS Kushwah, IPS at U.T Guest House with the nodal officers of General Elections 2019 to assess the election preparedness in the Chandigarh Parliamentary Constituency. The Election Commission of India has appointed Smt. Monimala as the General Observer and Sh. J S Kushwah as the Police Observer for Chandigarh Parliamentary Constituency.

At the onset a detailed presentation was given by Sh. Arjun Sharma, IAS, Joint CEO, U.T Chandigarh that highlighted the preparations of elections in the Chandigarh Parliamentary Constituency. During the meeting various measures for preparedness were discussed including Flying Squads, Static Surveillance Teams, Complaint monitoring control room, C-Vigil performance, Constitution of the Screening Committee, District MCMC, preparation of polling stations, security arrangements, implementation of Model Code of Conduct, personnel management, list of 19 AROs, EVM management,1950 call centre performance, Training management, SVEEP campaigns, polling staff welfare management, expenditure monitoring, materials management, social media outreach, deployment of forces, complaint management through NGRS, IT management and  in-house IT initiatives. 

 Thereafter, the Nodal officers assigned for EVM management, Election Expenditure, Model Code of Conduct(MCC), C-Vigil and Postal Ballot management gave a brief insight into the working of the area assigned to them. It was brought out that constant updation of election expenditure made by the political parties for their election campaigning is being done online and special voting arrangements have been undertaken for the staff who will be deputed for election duty. The Nodal Officer MCC also shared the procedure of resolving complaints regarding Model Code violation in the Chandigarh constituency. 

This was followed by a presentation on Law & Order arrangements for the General Elections 2019. The presentation focused mobilization of force, deployment of reserves, CAPF, area security plan, drugs, illicit, cash & Arms seizures, interstate coordination and communication plan for the deployed personnels.  

Further to this, it was shared that the 2nd round of training of presiding and polling officers is being conducted in the city. The District Media Certification and Monitoring Committee stated that the team has been acting on all the cases of Pre-certification of advertisements, audio/visual content of the political parties, and monitoring different media platforms on a daily basis. Similarly, Nodal Officer SVEEP elaborated the mass campaigning conducted by the team so far and future plans to encourage voter participation in the city, particularly the PwD's and youth.