By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Though Assembly elections are scheduled to take place in less than twenty days, the complaint registering toll-free number, ‘1950’ is not functional in many parts of the State which has saddened the NGOs.
National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) programme officer, Mashqura Fareedi recently said, “The ECI’s toll-free-number ‘1950’ is not working in Meghalaya which is a sorry state of affair especially when the State is all geared up for the upcoming polls.”
The 1950 toll-free number has been promoted by the Election Commission for people to get easy access services while registering their complaints against incidents of cash movement besides anything to do with the violation of the model code of conduct during electioneering process in the State.
Interestingly, the number was found to be working on Sunday though it was not reachable on most of the occasions.
According to an National Election Watch (NEW) official, non-availability of the toll-free number will affect the motive of the Election Commission in its steps to ensure a free and fair conduct of polls.
The problem was also admitted by the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, B Dhar at the formal launching of the Meghalaya Election Watch held at Raitong Building on Saturday.
Mashqura Fareedi said that the Deputy CEO has admitted that there is problem in the functioning of the toll-free number and the department has asked the telecom company to rectify the problem at the earliest.
Earlier, a meeting with various stakeholders, NGOs and civil societies was convened to discuss on the strategies to be adopted to ensure that Meghalaya elections are conducted in a free and fair manner.
The group is also making efforts to ensure that the use of money power in the up coming polls is reduced to bare minimum during the elections.
The National Election Watch official also added that they would be conducting campaigns to educate electorates that selling of votes is a criminal offence.
The National Election Watch is also preparing the background of all the candidates who will be contesting the elections slated for February 23 and would release this before February 12.
The National Election Watch has also launched its SMS campaign to provide the electorate with the information about the candidates from the different constituencies, which can be availed by typing myneta <name of the constituency> and send it to 56070.