EC will provide EVMs for upcoming municipal polls
(Representational Image) (Representational Image)
THE State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday said the Election Commission of India (EC) will make available electronic voting machines (EVMs) for conduct of elections in 14 municipal corporations during the urban local bodies’ polls, likely to be held in May-June.
Recently, State Election Commissioner S K Agarwal had said that the EC had expressed its inability to provide EVMs, as the machines with which the SEC had held urban local bodies’ elections in 2012 were manufactured before 2006, which had now become outdated. However, the SEC, in a statement on Monday, said the EC had informed that it had conducted a review of the EVMs’ availability after receiving a letter from the state poll body. The statement added that in the review, the EC had found EVMs were available with the Madhya Pradesh chief electoral officer “in adequate quantity”. Therefore, the SEC has been asked to get the EVMs it needs from the MP CEO after contacting him, the statement said.
It added that the SEC has asked for 25,000 control and 50,000 ballot units, and accordingly it has started work on getting EVMs from various districts of MP. “The elections of mayors and corporators in municipal corporations will be conducted with EVMs like 2012… The elections of municipal boards and nagar panchayats will be conducted using ballot papers, as they were held in 2012,” the statement said.
When contacted, Additional State Election Commissioner Ved Prakash Verma said: “The EVMs that are being given to the SEC have been manufactured before 2006 but are in working condition. Pre-2006 is a model of EVMs. These machines have a life of 15 years and many of them are still functional. We are getting the machines that are in working condition.”
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