EC to take stock of poll preparations in Manipur

The Election Commission of India will take stock of poll preparations in Manipur on Wednesday via video conferencing. The EC had met a day before to deliberate on holding elections amid Covid surge in the country.

The meeting with officials of Manipur will be the last as the EC has already visited poll bound states of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Goa.

The meeting will be with political parties and officials of the state government to get feedback and the status of poll preparations.

The Commission has held meetings to revise Covid guidelines after it had presentation report from the health secretary. Sources say stricter guidelines are likely to be issued soon with curbs on Crowd and other publicity modes.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra on December 30 in Lucknow had said that representatives of all political parties who met him during his visit have said that the Assembly elections should be conducted on time following all Covid-19 protocols.

This is an indication that there will be no postponement of the elections in the poll-bound states.

Addressing the media at the end of his three-day visit, the CEC had said that Uttar Pradesh now has 52.08 lakh new voters who will exercise their franchise in the upcoming assembly elections.

"In view of the increase in number of voters and also the prevailing pandemic condition, we have decided to set up 11,000 more polling booth to ensure that there is no crowding. With this, there will also be an increase in the number of polling personnel. We are also increasing the polling time by one hour across the state to prevent crowding at polling stations," he said.