Take up poll duty or face action: Bengaluru Urban DEO

BENGALURU:  Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike commissioner N Manjunath Prasad, who is also District Election Officer (DEO) for Bengaluru Urban, warned officials who absent from election duty,  of stringent action, including filing of criminal cases against them. According to an official release, Prasad was addressing Returning Officers, Assistant Returning Officers and Nodal Officers of Bangalore Central, Bangalore North and Bangalore South parliamentary constituencies in the city on Saturday. 

Prasad said that officials drafted for election duty have no choice, and instead of running from pillar to post to get exemption from election duty, they should use this sacred job to strengthen democracy, he said.  
The DEO said that appointment orders would be printed and served to almost 45,000 polling personnel -- 11,222 presiding officers, 11,234 assistant presiding officers and 22,700 polling officers -- through nodal officers of various departments on Monday, to man polling stations in the district.  

Poll personnel have been drawn from various agencies, including 26,000 from the state government, 8,372 from the Union government, 5,374 from banks and 4,520 from PSUs, he said. Prasad said the poll personnel would be trained in two phases — on April 1 and 10. Stringent action would be initiated and criminal cases filed against officials who absent themselves on the first day of training on April 1.