Check posts, vigilance cells to curb election freebies

Rowdy-sheeters who influence voters will be banished from Mysuru: DC

Mysore/Mysuru: With reports pouring in of political functionaries across parties enticing voters with freebies and making donations to institutions and others, the Mysuru District Administration has already begun tracking the movement and distribution of goods and monetary transactions. The restrictions will come into effect when poll dates are announced.

Check posts and vigilance cells will be set up at the borders to monitor the movement of goods and other materials including narcotics and people. Surveillance cameras will be installed with webcasting facilities at these check posts to ensure 24/7 monitoring, said Mysuru Deputy Commissioner (DC) Dr. K.V. Rajendra. He was speaking with media persons at an interaction programme organised by Mysuru District Journalists Association (MDJA) at Patrakarthara Bhavan in city this morning.

“The Election Commission of India (ECI) has already passed instructions to us and has alerted us about the recent trend of political parties to influence voters by offering freebies with an eye on elections. We, along with the GST will keep a hawk-eye on the movement of freebies,” he said.

We have roped Police, Excise, Commercial Tax and Transport Departments to monitor activities and Nodal Officers have been appointed to coordinate with such facilities and carry out raids in case of any suspicious movement of goods, persons, or vehicles,” the DC added.

Regarding voter awareness, DC Dr. K.V. Rajendra said that their goal this time was to achieve the maximum voting percentage and elaborate plans have been chalked out to achieve the same. “Through SVEEP (Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation), we want to achieve greater participation of both urban and rural voters. We are focussing on booth-level awareness programmes where there will be one-on-one contact between the voter and the respective booth officer whose phone numbers will be displayed on the booth notice boards,” he added.

In addition, Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and Voter Verification Paper Trail (VVPAT) machines have been kept at all the nine taluk centres for voter awareness in Mysuru. “Anyone can go and check the working of the machines and even mock vote so that it can be practised well before the elections,” the DC said. The Police and the District Administration will take stringent action against rowdy-sheeters who influence voters and already, a couple of them have been banished from Mysuru and appropriate orders have been passed. The Police have already submitted a list of such rowdy-sheeters and the process is on to extern them,” Dr. Rajendra added.

MDJA President S.T. Ravikumar, Vice-President M.S. Basavanna, General Secretary M. Subramanya and City Secretary Rangaswamy were present during the interaction.