Learning from the experience of the recent Assembly elections, the Election Commission has decided to set up a core committee for identifying reforms in the electoral process. Deputy Election Commissioners, the Chief Electoral Officers of the six States (including Bihar) and select Special Observers and Observers will be its members. The panel will be chaired by the Secretary General of the ECI and it will submit its report within a month.

The Committee will identify the shortcomings /gaps in ECI regulatory regime, if any, and the gaps in implementation and enforcement at the level of CEOs/District officials. It will also look at the need for strengthening legal/ regulatory framework enabling ECI to more effectively ensure compliance with directions including the Covid norms.

Following comments of high courts and the Supreme Court on the recent elections, the panel will also dwell upon the measures to ensure discharge of responsibility, by the authorities mandated under respective regulatory regime to do so irrespective of and in addition to ECI guidelines.

Shortcomings in existing framework in providing protection to electoral machinery from possibility of reprisal after elections, measures required for strengthening the offices of electoral machinery at the State level, issues related to Electoral Roll, Voter List and delivery of EPICs and the gaps in Communication strategy, if any, will also be studied by the committee of officials. “The Committee will also examine the recommendations of the nine Working Groups (which were set up post Lok Sabha Elections, 2019) in light of experiences in the State polls,” it said in a release.

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