Editor,
This is with reference to a letter published in your newspaper “What training and a half” written by “A serving officer” on 16th of Feb, 2013. First of all, let me congratulate the writer for an excellent piece of writing laced with humour. I would also like to thank him for bringing out the pitfalls in our training, if any.
First of all, I am sorry that we are not able to provide the polling personnel with good infrastructural facilities, which he may have experienced in his 25 years of service in West Garo Hills. Unfortunately, we cannot build them overnight, and so we have tried to make the best use of the facilities available with us. Secondly, he has made comments about the trainers which is unwarranted. Let me say that every trainer trains from the book, as we are expected to follow the book during the elections and things do keep on changing in elections, so I reiterate, we must follow the book.
I have personally attended the training on various occasions, and found it to be in accordance with the materials and directions of the ECI on the matter. Also, the seriousness of Elections had to be stressed to the polling parties and that is what the young MCS officer was stressing on. The trainers have tried to make the training interesting by speaking about their past experiences and anecdotes and learnings from them on practical issues as did and do crop up on the poll day.
The writer has conveniently forgotten to write about separate “Hands-on Training” for EVMs which are continuing and will continue until the dispatch of polling parties. All the technical staff and help are and will be available in the training halls for the hands-on training and announcements about the same have already been made during the training. Perhaps the writer was too eager to return to the comforts of his/her home that he/she missed out on this part.
With regards to the comments made on my “vast experience”, I never boasted about any vast election experience as suggested. I have spoken about and shared from my experiences during Assam Elections of 2011 when I was on probation. The writer must have turned a deaf ear to my rhetoric of, “Those who sweat more during the practice, bleed less in the war..” comments. Perhaps he/she wants to be spoon-fed so that they need not refer to the Handbooks. This is a good suggestion as this will save Government’s money on printing them.
Lastly, I would like to state that no one was forced to sign the training certificate. Those who felt so, were given a choice to meet us for training and hands-on experience and to sign the certificate only, and I must repeat, only, after they feel confident about handling the EVM properly.
At the end, I take this opportunity to ask the writer or any of the other polling personnel to attend the continuous hands-on training on EVMs and other matters. I also thank the writer for prompting me to bring this to the notice of all concerned through your esteemed newspaper,
Yours etc.,
Chinmay P Gotmare,
DEO South Garo Hills District
Youth and elections
Editor,
Youth most certainly stand for empowerment and change. This time, as the Chief Election Officer states, a lot of young people have enrolled themselves for the upcoming elections. Interestingly, the State election department aptly came up with the idea of spreading the message amongst the youth with the theme, ‘My Vote, My Valentine’. A welcome move indeed!. A serious matter may not necessarily be packaged in a serious and sombre manner. After all, a little fun may also bring its worth. But sincere as the youths are in displaying their affection towards their valentine they are also expected to cast their one and only vote with the same sincerity. As they choose their valentine wisely after weighing the pros and cons they must also choose their candidate sensibly after weighing the candidate’s merits and demerits. One wrong choice will leave the entire
state high and dry. The turnout was good, the effort apparent and the purpose was obvious. However what was visible at the end of the show were the number of beer and whisky bottles that were strewn alongside the fountain with little rag pickers filling their gunny bags and running helter -skelter trying their best to collect the maximum number of bottles. This made me wonder if the youth did carry home the message of the musical evening. One hopes that they would make the right choice in the upcoming election for better development and positive change.
Yours etc.,
Jenniefer Dkhar,
Via email