Gram panchayat polls: 25 nodal officers appointed to conduct polls smoothly

Anantapur: District Election Officer Gandham Chandrudu and district election observer K Harshavardhan on Wednesday conducted a review meeting on the arrangements for the smooth conduct of gram panchayat polls.

Addressing the meeting Gandham Chandrudu stated that all staff should strictly adhere to the Election Commission directives.

He said that election materiel management, manpower management, procurement of vehicles and transport arrangements for transportation of ballot boxes, webcasting and training of micro-level observer and handling of complaints to the control room were some of the issues discussed at the meeting. Besides effective prevention of illegal liquor flow from the neighbouring Karnataka state and arrangements for counting have also been discussed by the election officer and election observer.

The two advised the nodal officers to coordinate with all the stakeholders and conduct elections in a hassle-free manner. Free and fair elections must be ensured at all cost.

The twin officers said that the 25 nodal officers appointed to deal with different subjects are responsible for effective coordination with each other particularly on the law and order front. The election observer said that security was crucial in transportation of materiel and ballot boxes. Required number of staff for conducting elections should be ensured.

The training of election staff and dealing with exigencies was paramount. Flow of liquor must be checked and uninterrupted power supply to all polling stations must be ensured. SP Sathya Yesubabu said that all law and order requirements were taken care of by the police administration. He said that foolproof bandobust arrangements were in place.

Joint Collectors Nishanth Kumar, Dr A Siri and Gangadar Goud and Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Sobha Rani and District Revenue Officer Gayathri Devi and DPO Parvathi and others participated.