DEHRADUN: A day after Allahabad HC urged the Election Commission of India to postpone assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra on Friday said that situation will be reviewed during his visit to Uttar Pradesh next week to take an appropriate decision.
CEC Sushil Chandra said this while addressing a press conference in Dehradun. "Next week we are visiting Uttar Pradesh and will review the situation there. Then will arrive at an appropriate decision regarding the assembly elections."
This comes a day after Allahabad High Court requested the Election Commission of India to immediately postpone the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh for at least 1-2 months.
Justice Shekhar Yadav of the HC had remarked, "If rallies are not stopped, results will be worse than the second wave. "Jaan hai toh Jahaan hai (if there is life, we have the world)."
The CEC further said there would be all-women polling booths and special booths for 'Divayaangs'. Over 66,000 volunteers will also be deployed to help the specially-abled voters to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming state assembly elections. At present, the number of Divyang voters in the state stands over 66000.
This time, the EC has decided to allow voting through postal ballot for voters 80 and above along with Divyang and service voters.
The polling time will be from 8 am to 6 pm, the CEC said. "We have also decided to reduce the number of maximum voters per booth given the Covid 19 situation. Earlier, there used to be 1,500 voters per booth which now has been reduced to 1,200," said the CEC.
The CEC added, "A total of 623 new polling booths will be set up across the state taking the total number total polling booths to 11,647."
Those contesting elections with cases registered against them will have to inform the people about it along with the dessimination, not the information, by the political parties on their websites.
"The polling booths will have all amenities such as sanitisers, social distancing, masks and other Covid appropriate behaviour," said CEC Chandra.