Parties told to extend support for smooth conduct of polls

Nellore(Nellore district): District Collector M Hari Narayanan has appealed to all political parties to extend their cooperation for smooth conduct of elections in the district.

Following the directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI), the collector conducted a meeting with recognised political parties over the first phase of inspecting Electronic Voter Machines (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Proper Audit Trail (VVPAT) scheduled to begin from October 16.

Speaking on the occasion, he said that engineers from Bharath Electronics Limited would provide training for staff every day at RDO office for 25 days as per the guidelines of ECI over conducting polls transparently.

The collector recalled that many parties expressed satisfaction over functioning of EVMs.

Following request of some parties, he said the ECI was planning to introduce VVPATs, in which when a vote is cast, a slip will be printed on the VVPAT containing the serial number, name and symbol of candidate voted.

He urged the political parties to register the name of their representative before October 14 for providing identity cards.

He said that bringing electronic instruments or mobile phone into the inspection hall was strictly prohibited.

DRO Venkata Narayanamma, representatives from political parties Muralidhar Reddy (YSRCP), Surendra Babu (TDP), Srinivas (BJP), Sri Ram (BSP) and Dharani Kumar (AAP) were present.