Kolkata, April 27: Ahead of the second and final phase of West Bengal Assembly polls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday warned that any attempt at false voting will attract strict legal action, including imprisonment for the individuals making such attempts. The office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said that in all the polling booths, there would be Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled CCTV cameras enabling efficient web-casting, and these would have a direct connection with the central control room at the CEO’s office in Kolkata as well as with the district control rooms at the offices of the district magistrates-cum-district electoral officers.
“Constant monitoring of the activities within the polling booths will be done from the control rooms. So anyone making false voting attempts could be easily identified, tracked and arrested,” a CEO’s office functionary said. The ECI made it clear that the false voting attempts are punishable under Section 172 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, where the offender is punishable up to one year of rigorous imprisonment.
“Even if such attempts are done accidentally or carelessly, legal complications cannot be avoided. This is necessary to maintain the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. If there is any complaint or suggestion related to the election, the common man can directly contact the Commission either by calling a toll-free number or by sending an email,” the CEO’s office functionary said.
The second phase of elections for 142 Assembly constituencies will be done under blanket security coverage of 2,407 companies of central forces in addition to personnel from West Bengal Police and Kolkata. There will be a total of 142 general observers, that is one for each of the 142 Assembly constituencies, and 95 police observers, up from 84 in the first phase of polling for 152 assembly constituencies on April 23. The results will be declared on May 4.
IANS
