Hyderabad, Oct 5: For the first time in Telangana, there would be a facility available for senior citizens aged 80 and above to vote from the their home during the forthcoming Assembly tions in the state.
Differently abled persons with more than 40 percent disability, will also be able to vote from home in the upcoming Assembly elections in Telangana, said Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said here on Thursday .
Addressing a press conference over review of poll preparedness for the forthcoming assembly elections in the state, Rajiv said that they would have to submit applications on the ECI website, eci.giv.in, for utilizing this service.
Similarly, for differently abled persons (more than 40 per cent disability), arrangements were being made to facilitate them to cast vote from their home, he said that the ECI would then deploy a team along with representatives of political parties to visit their homes and enable them cast their votes.
The entire exercise would be videographed with a small compartment to ensure privacy as in polling booths, the CEC said.
A 17-member team headed by the CEC, who reached Hyderabad on Tuesday, is currently in the city to assess the poll preparedness in Telangana
The Election Commission is fully committed to delivering free, fair, transparent and inducement- free elections , he said that elaborate arrangements would be made with a special focus on curbing inducements in the ensuing elections in the State.
Money power and freebies distribution would be on our special radar, he said.
The Election Commission had also made it mandatory for the political parties to upload details of candidates with criminal antecedents on their websites or social media platforms, he said
To conduct the elections free, fair and inducement-free, 22 enforcement agencies have been given specific instructions to act swiftly and arrest all kinds of malpractices, he said.
On the new trend of distributing money using payments apps, the CEC said the RBI and State-level Banking Committee had been directed to closely monitor, besides an appeal was also made to National Payments Corporation of India to track any abnormalities.
Appealing the people to download, C Vigil app in their mobile apps, the CEC said people can share pictures and videos of any malpractice or other irregularities in their vicinity during the elections.
The identity of the users would not be disclosed and the ECI would act within 100 minutes and share the report with the users, he explained.
In Telangana , there were 3.17 crore voters, of which, the female voters were almost equal to that of male voters. This was a very encouraging sign, he added.
