Ready to Act As Per Constitutional Provisions: CEC on One Nation, One Election

Bhopal: Amid raging debate over the feasibility of ‘One Nation, One Election’ concept, mooted by BJP, chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday said that the panel was ready to act as per the legal provisions if the idea of holding simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and state assemblies in the country got implemented.

“Our work is to deliver elections before time. The time has been stipulated in the Constitution and the Representation of the People’s Act”, the CEC said while responding to a question at the news conference here as to if the commission was ready to hold simultaneous polls.

The CEC’s observation comes in the wake of the committee constituted by the Union government to study the ‘One Nation, One Election’ concept for implementation, meeting at the residence of former president Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday.

Mr Kumar said that as per the Constitution and the RP Act, elections can be declared six months before the closure of five-year-tenure of the LS and the state assemblies.

“We have a mandate to conduct elections as per the legal provisions, Constitution and RP Act and we are ready”, he said.

The EC was in Madhya Pradesh to review preparations for the year-end assembly elections in the state.

Mr Kumar said that the EC has focused on improving the turnout of women voters in the year-end assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.

The EC has identified 6920 polling booths in the state where the women voter turnout was ten percent less than the males, for the purpose.

An awareness campaign would be launched to increase the women voters’ turnout in these polling booths.

Similarly, the EC has also focused on increasing the turnout of the Particularly the Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in the coming polls by establishing polling booths at a distance of every two km in their areas.

The commission has also decided to improve voters’ turnout in the assembly constituencies that recorded poor turnouts.

Ninety five such assembly constituencies in the state have been identified, he said.

He said that webcasting would be undertaken in 50 percent of the 64,523 polling booths in the state.

As many as 5,000 polling stations would be managed by women, while 1150 would be handled by the young electorates.

Physically challenged people would manage 200 polling stations.