GHMC Commissioner D. Ronald Rose plays a crucial role as the Hyderabad District Election Officer (DEO) in the upcoming elections to the Telangana Legislative Assembly. He is tasked with the responsibility of conducting free and fair elections in the 15 Assembly constituencies having close to 4,000 polling stations and over 45 lakh voters in the district. Our correspondent Swathi Vadlamudi talks to him about the responsibilities and challenges on the way.
Q: Electoral rolls do not seem to be completely error-free. Information about deceased voters is streaming in late. How are you planning to rectify this?
RR: We have done a lot of exercise in minimising the errors in the electoral rolls, which, we feel will increase the voting percentage this time.
There are about 45 lakh voters enrolled presently, from the 15 constituencies. We had removed more than 2.75 lakh duplicate entries last year. Duplicate votes are generated when the voter shifts place of residence and registers afresh. It is very difficult for the Booth Level Officer (BLO) to know, and they go by the voter’s declaration that they do not have vote anywhere else. In October, when the final roll was published, we identified 20,000-22,000 duplicate votes still existing, and removed them 15 days ago. The supplementary roll will be published on November 10.
We also removed 20,000 dead voters from the rolls over the last 15 days. BLOs are going from house-to-house to get information about deceased voters, and we will mark them in the ASD (Absentee-Shifted-Dead) list, and give it to the presiding officers (POs). If someone from the list turns up to vote, the POs will double check the genuineness with help of polling agents, and take action accordingly.
Apart from these, we also identified 3.61 lakh cases of address issues, photo mismatches, and gender mismatches, and cleaned them up in the last two months. Much of this was done before the publication of the rolls, but some 20,000-30,000 we have done after the publication, which will be reflected in the supplementary list.
Q: You had mentioned earlier, an App to monitor the queues at the polling stations. Could you please elaborate?
RR: We have designed an App for urban area voters, which will give hourly updates so that the voter will know about the status of the queue in his or her polling station. Based on that, we are also planning to give a tentative wait time. We will also be sending SMS alerts to the phone numbers we already have. The App will be hosted on the MyGHMC app on the day of the poll.
Q: Please explain about the security arrangements in place.
RR: We have identified vulnerable or critical locations, where police will be deployed as per the criticality. Three police observers have been appointed by the Election Commission of India who will look into the police deployment. Apart from this, every polling station will be manned by one police officer at the least.
Q: How are you dealing with complaints about violation of model code of conduct?
RR: Our major source of MCC complaints is cVIGIL app popularised by the ECI. Citizens can click a photo of the violation and upload the same. Immediately, it goes to the RO concerned. We have three static surveillance teams (SST), three flying squads, and one video surveillance team in each constituency. They work round the clock in three shifts, which means that 135 SSTs, 135 flying squads and 45 video surveillance teams are in place. All their vehicles are GPS-enabled and we can monitor their movement real time.
After a complaint is lodged on cVIGIL, within 100 minutes we have to solve the issue, or it gets escalated. A majority of the complaints pertain to wall paintings and party flags.
Q: How are you placed in terms of staffing?
RR: We need a huge manpower. We are estimating that we require close to 22,000 people, if the ballot is a single unit. If the number of candidates is more and we require one more unit, then I will need additional hands. For POs and APOs we have sufficient manpower. We have a shortfall when it comes to Other Polling Officers, because people have not turned up for training. Very strict disciplinary action will be taken against the truant. Hopefully we will have sufficient manpower in two to three days’ time.
Q: EVM malfunction was a major issue during previous elections. What are the measures to ensure it doesn’t recur?
RR: EVM does not malfunction technically. Errors crop up because our own people have not had sufficient training. This time we have increased the sectors, which are 10-12 polling stations grouped into one. From 20-22 per sector earlier, we have brought them down to 10-12, so that the sector magistrates, who are well trained in EVM handling, can reach any polling station within 5-10 minutes in case of problems. We have 367 sectors across the district. Sector magistrates will also have reserve EVMs with them in case of the need for replacement. We have also given hands-on sufficient training to POs and APOs.
Q: What is the most challenging situation you are facing in the run-up to the polls?
RR: The challenge is to bring voters to the polling stations. Last time, we had 52% polling. Apathy of urban voters may be one of the reasons, but we still find it puzzling. That’s why we have started the sticker campaign 3-4 days back, where in BLOs will visit every house, paste a sticker outside their house, and also give them a small invitation, and apprise them of the Voter Helpline app. We are also planning to distribute voter information slips after November 10.
