PANAJI
Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer, Ramesh Verma, IAS, on Tuesday underscored the need for politicians and political parties to maintain decorum in their utterances and actions during electioneering for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections slated to be held in the State on May 7.
Verma was speaking to representatives of political parties at a meeting he had called to discuss all poll-related issues including the various platforms the Election Commission of India through his office has made available to file complaints as well as seek permissions both online and offline for campaign meetings and other events.
Verma told the political party representatives that the upper limit for expenditure by a candidate for the two Goa seats has been fixed at Rs 75 lakh.
At the all party meeting, Verma and other officials briefed the representatives on election procedure, besides the various do’s and don’ts prescribed in the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The political parties were also told that officials of CEO Goa will be on the job to track expenditure by them. Officials will also be monitoring the media to check for violations of the Code.
The parties were also put through the processes for obtaining permissions through the Suvidha App for public meetings and rallies, besides to register complaints of MCC violations through the C-vigil application.
Meanwhile, the ECI has modified the rules governing the casting of votes by ‘absentee voters’ mostly government officials who are deployed on poll duty making it now mandatory for all such votes to be cast before the general polling day on May 7.
Also, polling agents of political parties will also be permitted to witness the process of casting ballots by these poll officials which will now be done at dedicated facilitation centers which will be set up at the Returning Officer level until two days prior to May 7 which is polling day for both the seats in Goa.
In past elections those casting the postal ballot could send their votes (ballots) by post and had time till well after the polling day an arrangement which several political parties had objected to citing that it leaves scope for influencing the government servants by the party in power at the State level.
