Warangal Lok Sabha Transparency through digital lens

Warangal: Gone are those days of people raising a sceptical eye over the election process in polling stations, especially that are located in the remotest corners. The technological transformation is such that even the doubting Thomases can now believe in the system.

The introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs), which is regarded as a milestone for the Indian democracy, made booth capturing a history. The subsequent additions like Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), which allows voters to verify their vote was cast correctly, introduced by the Election Commission (EC) brought in more transparency. Of late, the EC stretched its eyes on digital surveillance of the poll process in a bid to bring in more transparency and clear the doubts if any in the minds of politicians and general public.

It may be noted here that Warangal Urban is the only district in the State to bring all the polling stations in its region under digital surveillance during the recent elections to Assembly. Thanks to the Urban District Collector, Prashanth Jeevan Patil, who made it possible. Now Patil, the returning officer (RO) for the Warangal Parliamentary Constituency (PC), has now made arrangements for the digital surveillance in all the polling stations spread across seven Assembly segments.

Speaking to The Hans India, Prashanth Jeevan Patil said: "The election process in all the 1,859 polling stations will now be monitored through digital surveillance.

The objective is to check any kind of malpractice – rigging, booth capturing etc – and to make the entire process transparent. This apart, the digital surveillance is expected to instill confidence among the voters so that they can vote without any fear. Such measures also increase voter turnout to polling stations."

Based on the availability of data networking facility, the administration has made arrangements for live webcasting from 277 polling stations, offline webcasting from 715 polling stations, closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance in 723 polling stations, mobile surveillance in 64 polling stations, video surveillance monitoring in 80 polling stations.

The aim is to observe live poll process from start to end on poll day, April 11, from polling stations to enable all stakeholders and public, who want to monitor election process of any polling station during polls. Meanwhile, the RO advised the candidates resist from sending bulk short message service (SMS) as part of their campaigning. Complaints in this regard can be lodged by calling on 95737 68257.