PATNA: On the occasion of the National Voters’ Day, Bihar chief secretary Deepak Kumar on Monday felicitated senior officials for the peaceful conduct of the state assembly election amid the Covid-19 pandemic and new voters were given Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPIC). The state-level programme ‘Best Electoral Practices’ was held here at Adhiveshan Bhawan.
Addressing the programme, the chief secretary said Covid-19 was a challenging time for everyone and conducting the assembly election safely during the pandemic was commendable. He congratulated the officers, politicians for making it successful, and voters for turning up in large number despite the restrictions.
Deepak said the election taught us to move toward a digital platform for voting. He also suggested that the Election Commission of India should move towards electronic-voting so that registered voters can franchise their votes from anywhere, like the ‘One Nation One Card’, which has been implemented in the public distribution system.
Patna divisional commissioner Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Kundan Kumar (DEO- Paschim Champaran), director (technical development) department of industries Pankaj Dixit, Ashok Priyadarshi (deputy electoral officer), Narendra Kumar (system analyst-cum-project coordinator at National Informatics Centre-Patna), additional electoral officer Kapil Sharma and Sr Lissil Pallipadan, CEO of Asha Deep, Rehabilitation Centre for the Handicapped were bestowed with a special award.
The best district electoral officer award was given to DEO-Aurangabad Saurabh Jaiswal, DEO-Khagaria Alok Ranjan Ghosh, DEO-Katihar Kanwal Tanuj, DEO-Gaya Abhishek Singh and DEO-Muzaffarpur Chandrashekhar Singh.
In the best electoral registration officer award, a total of seven officials received the award —Varsha Singh (deputy development commissioner- Katihar), Mohd Ahsan Ahmed (land reforms deputy collector), Ravindra Nath (deputy development commissioner- Paschim Champaran), Amrendra Kumar Pankaj (circle officer- Purnia), Ranjan Kumar Choudhary (Banka Panchayati raj officer) and Anil Kumar Thakur from Araria.
The best booth-level officer award was given to officers of Bakkhtiyyarpur (180), Chainpur (206), Kodha (69), Raniganj (47), Pranpur (66), Hathua (104), Rosera (139), Obra (220), Katoria (162) and Valmiki Nagar (1).
Celebrations in Katihar & Chhapra too: At least 8,779 voters whose data was accepted by the Katihar district election office and made ready for distribution, were given voter ID-cards on the occasion. According to an official figure provided by the district election office, altogether 28,490 people had filled the forms for the addition of their names in the electoral list, out of which 8,779 electors were given the coloured Epic.
In Chhapra, addressing the National Voters’ Day event, Saran divisional commissioner Punam said the purpose of celebrating the day is to ensure participation of every voter in the democratic process. Saran DM Dr Nilesh Ramchandra Deore said the use of power to elect representatives without consideration of caste and creed makes democracy stronger.
(With inputs from Sanjeev Mishra and H K Verma)