NEW DELHI: A free, fair and peaceful elections to the Delhi municipal corporation will be conducted on December 4, and all necessary steps are being taken to ensure this, said state election commissioner Dr Vijay Dev on Friday. Prioritising voter turnout, Dr Dev said this year the State Election Commission (SEC) is providing the facility to vote from home for senior citizens and differently-abled voters to ensure higher voter participation.
Adding to this, the commission will information technology to increase citizen participation in elections. The SEC has launched a ‘NIGAM Chunav’ mobile application for users to avail basic information on poll booth location, downloading voting slips, filing grievances and others.
“The commission has also launched WhatsApp and SMS numbers through which voters can get all the details regarding the civic election,” Dev said. Encouraging first-time voters, Dev said, “The municipal election is third-tier election, which will be directly associated with our daily needs. So, I appeal to all first-time voters to exercise their franchise after carefully looking through candidates’ profiles.”
According to him, the postal ballot service cane be availed by those deployed in election duty. “We are hopeful that 100 per cent of SEC employees will cast their vote. We are also getting good feedback from them about the facility,” Dev said.
Talking about the danger of fake and paid news on the topic of electoral democracy, Dev said, “We appeal to all our media friends to use self-corrective steps to debunk such fake and paid news as they are a big menace to the fundamentals of electoral democracy.”
The poll commission has already prohibited the release of opinion and exit polls for particular time periods as they can influence voters. To restrict liquor and money circulation in elections, the commission has also constituted a flying squad and surveillance team.
The commission has also mapped out over 3,000 critical polling booths across the city on the basis of inputs received from the Delhi Police and district election offices. “We will deploy micro-observers and do the web-casting at these critical booths to ensure free and fair elections,” said the election commissioner.
