EC poll meet on Dec 22

SHILLONG: The full team of the Election Commission (EC) comprising Chief Election Commissioner AK Joti, Election Commissioners Om Prakash Rawat and Sunil Arora, besides other senior officials, will hold meetings in the city on December 22 and 23 to discuss the state’s preparedness.
After the meeting, the EC will announce the poll date for Meghalaya sometime in the early part of January.
In the last elections in 2013, the announcement came in the first week of January as the EC did not want to disturb the Christmas and New Year celebrations, an official source said.
The team will hold a meeting with political parties, Chief Electoral Officer Frederick Kharkongor, senior police officials, SPs and DCs on December 22 followed by another meeting with the chief secretary and the DGP the next day.
The meeting will discuss the overall preparedness of the state to conduct the polls before the expiry of the Assembly on March 6 next year.Kharkongor said the meeting assumes significance in the run-up to the polls and the EC will have to assess the ground situation before announcing the date.
Earlier this month, the EC team had visited two other poll-bound states, Nagaland and Tripura.
Polls to all the three northeastern states are expected to be held sometime in February.
An election official said during the meeting with political parties, the issues related to efficacy of EVMs and VVPAT will be explained.
UDP leader Bindo Lanong recently said he prefers paper ballot to EVMs as the machines can be tampered and hacked.
However, the official said that there were no adverse remarks about EVMs from any quarters after the Gujarat and Himachal poll results.