TURA: In order to ensure free and fair election to the just announced election to the 2-Tura (Lok Sabha) Parliamentary (ST) Constituency, scheduled to held within the first phase of polls on April 11, District Election Officer, Ram Singh who also happens to be the Returning Officer (RO) convened a meeting on Tuesday at his office chamber with political parties for briefing the various aspects of the provisions of the Model Code of Conducts (MCC) as contained in the Representations of People Act, 1951.
At the outset, the District Election Officer informed that with the poll date having been already announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) has come into force with immediate effect and the same has been promulgated in the district and disseminated to the general public through both print and electronic media. Spelling out Do’s & Don’ts, he expressed the hope that all political parties and their contesting candidates strictly abide by the rules and sets an example of high moral standards of themselves towards achieving a successful, peaceful and fair election in keeping with the true essence of democratic ethics and practices.
Asserting that the District administration is ready and fully geared up for conduct of fair and peaceful election, Ram Singh said that few of the essentials election machinery components like Flying Squad, Transport Cell, Expenditure Cell, MCMC etc have been constituted which all will be fully activated and become functional with the issue of notification on March 18. While admitting that no election process is easy to manage and there are challenges galore, he said that with the advancement in technology, there are now available facilities like E-Subhida for political parties to seek permissions online for campaigning, cVIGIL for direct and foolproof complaining and uploading of videos/pictures which gets geo-tagged to the sender and toll free number-‘1950’ for any poll related queries and VVPAT with visual picture of the candidate this time around.
The District Election Officer also reminded of the Election Commission’s directives for plastic reductions; and reiterated his appeal to all political parties to spread the message of minimal use of plastic wares like water bottles, thermocol plates before and during the election processes. A complete set of soft copies of MCC guidelines were also handed over to the representatives of Indian National Congress ( INC), National People’s Party (NPP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) who attended the meeting. Simultaneously, a By-poll for Selsella Legislative Assembly Constituency will also be held as that of Tura Parliamentary Constituency, which however, will have separate EVM and a Returning Officer.
The 2-Tura parliamentary Constituency comprises of 24 assembly segments. In West Garo Hills there are 11 Assembly Constituencies and the total eligible electorate comprises of 321200 out of which 160708 are male while 160492 are female voters. Further, in West Garo Hills alone there are 481 polling stations spread across 11 Assembly Constituencies. It is said that there are 427 persons with disabilities eligible voters in the district. In Meghalaya there are Two Parliamentary Constituencies namely, 1-Shillong and 2-Tura Parliamentary Constituencies.