Shillong, May 29: Election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat will be held on June 18 with the counting scheduled the same evening. The election is being held to fill the seat falling vacant on June 21.
Announcing this on Friday after a meeting with political parties, Chief Electoral Officer Dr BDR Tiwari said, “The last date of making nomination is June 8, scrutiny of nomination will be held on June 9 and last date for withdrawal of candidates is June 11,” he said.
The election notification will be issued on June 1, he said.
The polling will be held 9 am to 4 pm on June 18 while the counting will take place after 5 pm.
The counting process to be completed before June 20, Dr Tiwari added.
Meanwhile, election officials inspected the polling venue at Meghalaya Legislative Assembly on Friday morning.
They found the arrangements satisfactory “as per the norms, schedule, layout etc., provided by Election Commission of India.
The CEO detailed the paperwork required from candidates. “We briefed the entire process to the political parties regarding filing of nomination including submission of Form 2C, affidavit in Form 26, security deposit, author affirmation, Form A and Form BB in case of party candidate including the provision related with the Form C1 to C8,” he said.
He underlined the mandatory disclosure of criminal records. “Special emphasis was laid on the provision relating to the publicity of the criminal antecedents by the candidate and political parties in compliance with the direction of Supreme Court and instruction issued by Election Commission of India.”
Explaining the voting system, Dr Tiwari said, “The system of election under the proportional representation by means of single transferable vote and the procedure for open ballot voting under the Representation of People Act 1951 has also been briefed to the political parties.”
He clarified the rules for showing ballots.
“Members belonging to political party are required to show their marked ballot paper only to the authorised agent of their own political party and not to any other party agent on the day of poll. Independent MLAs are prohibited from showing their ballot paper to any agent.”
“We will brief them on the method of recording preferences, validity of ballot papers and the procedure for counting of vote and ascertainment of the quota,” he added.
Dr Tiwari said the meeting addressed all concerns. “We had a good interaction and all the queries related to the biennial election of the Rajya Sabha already been briefed.”
While notices were sent to all political parties, some could not attend.
“We tried to approach them even over phone but due to some preoccupation, especially due to the preoccupation, they are not been able to attend,” he said.
On upcoming Lok Sabha bye-election, the CEO said, “Once the Election Commission of India will announce the schedule, then only it will happen.”
He also confirmed readiness for the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. “Election machinery is always ready. Since SIR schedule is already been announced for the state of Meghalaya, we are ready for the SIR in the state,” Dr Tiwari said.
The revision will use the current e-roll and the 2005 base e-roll from the last SIR. “Whoever are the citizen of India, 18 year of age, they are eligible to be voter. They can be voter in one place, not more than one place at a time,” he said.
On documentation, he noted, “EPIC along with EPIC of the relation like mother, father, whoever are there, and one of the 11 ID proofs are required. Aadhaar is also the 12th, but there are some legal limitations.”
Training of field staff is underway. “Our teams are fully ready. We are going for the training phase because BLOs are supposed to go door to door, they have to give the notices. Enumeration form have to be given to all the voters for the verification. Our teams are getting ready for the conduct of SIR,” he said.
