SHILLONG: As distribution of money and violation of model code of conduct is a common scene during elections, the State Election Department in Meghalaya has now decided to come up with a Citizens Vigilance app to tackle the such wrong doings with the help of citizens.
Meghalaya Chief Electoral Officer, FR Kharkongor while speaking at an EVM and VVPAT awareness program here on Friday informed that the app will allow the citizens to upload pictures or videos about distribution of money and violation of model code of conduct during the electioneering
The app will be geotag and it would be able to certify if the video or photo uploaded by the people in the app is old or the actual video of such wrong doings
Once the video is uploaded, the Returning officer would verify the case and if the complaint is genuine, the authorities would take legal action against the people involved in such wrong doings.
The app is expected to be of great importance in Meghalaya since complaints of distribution of money and violation of model code of conducts during any election is quite common in Meghalaya and the app is expected to be helpful in reducing the use of money and muscle power during election
Earlier, Kharkongor also said that the EVMs which would be used during the MDC elections were different from the ones that are used in the Legislative and Lok Sabha elections. He said the EVMs used in the Legislative and Lok Sabha elections had stringent safeguards
Talking about the faults in EVMs and VVPATs, he said that malfunction percentage in EVMs was 5 percent in the entire country but in the last election in Meghalaya, it was only 0.71 percent and similarly the malfunction percentage in VVPATs was 5-6 percent in the entire country but in Meghalaya it was 2.23 percent.
Earlier, he said M2 variety of VVPATs was used in Meghalaya even as he maintained that the ballot voting led to wastage of paper, manpower and time besides there were fears of manipulation but EVMs were time efficient
He also said that malfunctions could occur in EVMs due to human error but there was no proof that any tampering could be done with the EVMs.
