The Election Commission on Tuesday directed its observers to constantly review execution of non-bailable warrants and recovery of illicit arms from undesirable elements in order to ensure free, fair and peaceful assembly polls in Bihar.
Briefing over 280 senior officers, who have been appointed as observers, the three-member EC led by B B Tandon specifically told them to tour their allotted assembly constituencies extensively and build confidence among weaker and disadvantaged sections.
The meeting with observers comes a day ahead of the EC's visit to Bihar for a detailed review of electoral preparedness in the state, where polls would be held in four phases from October 18. Notification for the first phase of polling is to be issued on September 23.
Tandon, along with two other Election Commissioners N Gopalaswami and Naveen Chawla, asked the observers to ensure that preventive arrests were made 'totally objectively and on merit'.
The officers have been asked to make sure that the affidavits filed by the candidates at the time of nomination detailing their movable/immovable assets, qualifications, convictions and cases pending in courts, were displayed prominently and made available for public scrutiny without any loss of time, an EC press note said.
Directing the observers to strictly enforce implementation of model code of conduct, the EC said that no videography or photography would be allowed inside the polling stations.
However, the observers were directed to ensure extensive videography of all major events that might take place during the election process besides voting at hyper-sensitive and sensitive polling stations, it said. Observing that Central government employees would be engaged for poll duties as far as possible, the EC asked to ensure that all transferred officers were moved out.
During the elections, no more than three vehicles would be allowed to come within 100 metres of the office of returning officers at the time of submitting nominations, it said. To curb the tendency of overcrowding, the EC directed that at the time of nominations, only candidates, their proposers, as prescribed by law, and four others would be allowed to enter the office of ROs, the pressnote said.
In a bid to ensure close monitoring and supervision, one general observer is being appointed for each assembly constituency and one expenditure observer for each district, as was done during the last assembly polls in the state, it added.
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