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The Election Commission held today a briefing meeting for the Observers being deployed by the Commission for General Election to the Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assemblies and bye-elections to fill certain casual vacancies in the Lok Sabha and certain State Legislative Assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and N.C.T. of Delhi.
The meeting was addressed by Shri T. S. Krishna Murthy, Chief Election Commissioner, Shri B. B. Tandon, Election Commissioner and Shri N. Gopalaswami, Election Commissioner.
Altogether, 250 officers are being appointed as observers (consisting of 190 General and 60 Expenditure) to oversee the election process in forthcoming elections, 2004. On an average two General Observers and one Expenditure Observer will cover one District. These Observers shall cover the entire election process i.e from the filing, scrutiny and withdrawal of nominations to the polling and counting process culminating in the declaration of result. The Observers play an important statutory role in ensuring free and fair elections. They act as the eyes and the ears of the Commission in the field. Some of the important features to be looked at by the Observers in the current round of elections will be:-
Filing of affidavits by candidates and their wide dissemination.
Accounts furnished by the candidates from time to time stating the candidate’s expenses to ensure that the expenditure is within the prescribed ceiling limits.
Scrutiny of these accounts as per Commission’s instructions.
Observance of the Model Code of Conduct and its strict compliance by all concerned.
Ensuring impartiality of district officers particularly those performing statutory role as District Election Officers and Returning Officers.
Ensuring balanced deployment of Central Forces and State Forces in the constituencies especially in sensitive and hypersensitive areas.
Ensuring compliance of all instructions issued by the Commission from time to time.
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