Hyderabad: Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat on Wednesday directed collectors and superintendents of police to launch a crackdown on illegal flow of liquor and money in their respective districts ahead of Assembly polls.
Mr Rawat, who concluded his three-day trip to assess the preparedness of the state administration, expressed satisfaction over the arrangements being made for the polls.
Addressing a press conference here, Mr Rawat said that the commission had wide-ranging discussions with district electoral officers, SPs, chief secretary, and other senior officials.
The commission has also held discussions with enforcement agencies such as income-tax, excise, narcotics, apart from officials of banks. He said that the theme of this election was “Accessible to All” and hence efforts would be made to help more people with disabilities to cast their vote. Special facilities like wheelchair, waiting area, queue assistance, ramps and escorts would be provided to them, he said.
He said the number of voters in TS dropped to 2.73 crore against 2.82 crore during 2014 elections due to cleaning of electoral rolls. The deletions were because of multiple entries, deaths and change in residence.
A novel feature this time will be setting up of the all women polling stations but there will be no ‘pink polling booths’ for women as stated earlier like in Karnataka because Opposition parties had objected to pink which is the TRS colour.
