Toughening its stand on no tolerance for distribution of money, freebies, liquor and gifts in exchange of votes in the Assembly polls, the Election Commission has planned to come up with a comprehensive strategy with inputs from multiple enforcement agencies.
The Hindu reports that Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the Commission has received very detailed inputs on the modus operandi of the distribution of money, liquor, gifts in the state and a strategy will be unveiled to deal with the menace.
One of the measures is a web-based application to monitor cash transaction reports from banks which were being used for reporting transactions above Rs. 10 lakh, including money transfer and RTGS/NEFT transactions. The application would also monitor all cash transactions through banks of value more than Rs. 1 lakh.
A special purification drive between February 15 and 29 in all poll-bound States would be held, in which door-to-door verification will take place. In a bid to crack down on paid news, the EC will also be monitoring the content of news channels in the state.
While 17 constituencies in the State would have the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) through which voters can check whether their vote to the intended candidate has been registered, over 20,000 polling stations would have web casting CCTV cameras wherever possible.
Another progressive effort towards making polling stations disabled-friendly is initiation of online applications for provision of wheelchairs and preparing information brochures in Braille for the visually-challenged.