SHILLONG, MAY 29: Deputy Commissioner of East Khasi Hills District SC Sadhu, who is also the Returning Officer of Shillong Parliamentary seat on Wednesday conducted inspection of the counting centres at Polo ground and said elaborate arrangements have been made for the purpose of counting of votes for the general elections to the 18th Lok Sabha on June 4.
Speaking to reporters, the DC said, “Today’s inspection was the purpose of briefing all BLOs and other stakeholders like media team, police, CRPF, which are guarding all the strong rooms and counting centres about various arrangements that we have made.”
“In fact, we have made elaborate arrangements for the purpose of counting, which includes smooth counting of machines and postal ballot counting for all seven districts would be conducted here. And also detailed arrangements so that there should not be untoward incidents at the counting centres and to ensure that only authorized people are allowed to enter the counting centres,” he said.
The DC informed that a separate media cell has also been created.
“We have briefed the media team also to ensure that media can have real time access to information so that information sharing will be in a continuous and transparent manner. We will be setting up a seperate screen for media access and up to this media centre, we will allow media people to take mobile so that for any communication from there, there will be able to share this information. There will also be seperate parking arrangements for political parties and their teams, officers, counting team,” he said.
The DC said he will not revoke his order prohibiting processions and rallies on the counting day.
“We will not revoke this order. There is no thought of revoking this order but again I would like to reiterate that there is no objection of the parties and candidates celebrating at their own localities, we are not against celebrations,” he said.
Sadhu said he had received petitions from a political party and an NGO with regards to revocation of 144 CrPC particularly with regards to prohibition of processions and rallies but this order has been issued with an objective to ensure law and order is not disturbed and to ensure the traffic convenient for the normal commuters.
“Because on June 4, that is counting day would be a working day and the counting centre is in the middle of the city so there is a possibility that processions may lead to law and order disturbances and will create huge traffic problems that we experienced in last Assembly elections. So with this objective we have issued this direction prohibiting processions and rallies but other forms of celebrations in their own localities are not prohibited in this order. This is very clear and we have conveyed it to all stakeholders,” he stated.