Bhopal: By September 2018 the Election Commission of India will be logistically equipped to conduct Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections simultaneously, said Election Commissioner O P Rawat while talking to media persons here on Wednesday.
In order to conduct elections in all states at one go along with Lok Sabha, the ECI will need 40 lakh EVMs and VVPAT, said Rawat adding that the commission had demanded Rs 3400 crore to purchase VVPAT and Rs 12,000 crore for EVMs. The government has allocated the amount and by September next year the Commission will be able to get the required devices, said Rawat. In 2013, the SC had asked the Commission to introduce Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in a phased manner for the elections.
Stating that VVPAT ensures transparency in the voting process, the election commissioner cited an example of recently conducted elections in Goa. “During Goa state assembly polls, there was a dispute over number of votes polled at four polling stations. But when the VVPAT slips were matched with the EVMs votes, all confusion was cleared,” he informed. Rawat also launched the App ERONet, which will be used to check the duplicity of the votes.
ERONet identify duplicate names in the voters list and alert the officials about these names and deregister the voter from one of these constituencies. “ERONet envisages bringing in seamless processing of the forms, easy handling of the databases, regular and simpler way of monitoring the Electoral Rolls (ERs) activities and maintaining the ERs health the best as far as possible. The ERONet has three major components. ERONet to link all EROs of nation, Unified National Photo Electoral Rolls Data (UNPER) and Citizen Electoral services (NVSP),” he informed. Across the country 30 lakh duplicate names in the voters list have been deleted and this figure in Madhya Pradesh is 1.24 lakh.
