Our Correspondent
Imphal, Feb. 3 (EMN): The Election Commission of India (ECI) team will be visiting Manipur on February 7 to review the election preparedness for the ensuing two-phase election to the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly on February 27 and March 3.
Informing this during a press conference on Thursday, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Manipur Rajesh Agrawal said that the ECI team will be meeting all the political parties, senior functionaries of the state administration and all the enforcement agencies.
Agrawal said that the team will have detailed discussion with the deputy election officers and superintendents of police of all the 16 districts of the state. The ECI team will also address a press conference on February 8.
The CEO also informed that Election Notifications for first phase had been issued by all Returning Officers (RO) on Tuesday, while the notifications for second phase will be issued on February 4.
In view of Covid-19, the number of persons accompanying a candidate for filing nomination is restricted to two and the number of vehicles is also restricted to two, he informed and added that candidates shall open separate bank accounts for incurring expenditure in the current general elections.
On the poll campaign, the CEO also mentioned that permission for meeting, door-to-door campaigning should be obtained from District Election Officers (DEOs) in advance. Door-to-door campaign is allowed with up to 20 persons excluding security personnel. No road show, physical rally, Pad-yatra, cycle/bike/vehicle rally and procession is allowed till February 11.
Regarding law and order, he said 50 Companies of the Central Armed Police Force had been deployed in the state and 75 more companies will be arriving in the next two weeks.
On the seizure sector, he said about 17,187 (74.8%) of total license arms (22,957) had been deposited and certain items, including cash, drugs, liquor, gold and others, amounting to INR 78 crore had been seized from January 8 onwards till date.
He also informed that a total of 20 General Observers, 11 Police Observers, 20 Expenditure Observers and three special observers will be arriving soon to assess the situation.
In addition to the existing 2959 polling stations, nine auxiliary polling stations have been created and approved by ECI for elections this time.
In the first phase of elections on February 27, polling will be held for 38 constituencies.
The second phase will be held at 22 assembly constituencies across six electoral districts on March 3.The results will be out on March 10.
Additional CEO N Praveen Singh, Joint CEO Ramananda Nongmeikapam and State Nodal Officer (Media) W Phajatombi Devi were present during the press conference.