Agartala: Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Kiran Gitte on Saturday launched ‘Mission Zero Poll Violence’, aiming to raise awareness among the political parties, workers, and voters to shun the violence focusing on the political aspect of the elections.
Gitte said as part of the initiative, sensitization workshops would be held in all 60 assembly constituencies involving political parties, their workers, and eminent citizens highlighting the negative effects of violence on the persons, families, society, and overall image of the state besides, stepping up security across the state to build confidence among the voters.
He said a sizable number of the central armed police force (CAPF) personnel has already arrived in the state and more are on the way following the direction of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and mentioned, “The election authority is concerned about the violence during the election in Tripura and wants to zero down the poll-related violence to make the election as ‘festival of democracy’ in true spirit.”
The flag march and road march by the CAPF shall start in advance to ensure confidence building among the political workers for campaigning and among the citizens to cast their votes freely without any fear. The security forces would be deployed well before the poll process so that they get familiar with the locality. Local police would extend necessary cooperation to the CAPF.
The state police would ensure all miscreants/ trouble mongers/ history sheeters are either kept on a constant watch or bound under relevant sections of Cr PC. Adequate nakaa points would be set up to monitor the illegal movement of arms, and persons to vitiate the poll process. Use of deterrent measures like web-casting of the poll process, and videography outside the Polling Stations to keep miscreants at bay shall be ensured, Gitte pointed out.
The initiative would be taken for a micro-level strategy to face the challenge of poll-related violence. Every police station would make its own strategy, depending upon their respective ground-level inputs to ensure 100 violence-free elections, he said, adding that ECI steps up to improve in 929 polling stations across the state to improve the voter turnout in the next assembly elections, which was less than 88 per cent.
