The forthcoming elections to Telangana Legislative Assembly will be fair, transparent and free from inducement, according to Rajiv Kumar, Chief Election Commissioner of India.

Addressing a press conference after a review of preparedness for the Telangana Assembly Elections 2023, Kumar said the Commission had ‘extensive’ discussions with representatives of the political parties and officials of enforcement agencies besides the State Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police. 

Voting from home

The political parties sought removal of money power, liquor, freebies, increase in upper limit of expenditure, provision of a level-playing field while welcoming the facility of voting from home to be offered to the elderly and physically challenged for the first time in Telangana, the CEC added.

There are 3.17 crore voters in Telangana with almost equal number of male and female voters. There is an addition of 8.11 lakh voters who are in the 18-19 years age group this time.

On the deletion of voters, Kumar said a fool-proof method was adopted without any suo moto deletion and about 10 percent of deleted votes were randomly picked up and verified at the field level. 

Measures

The Commission has lined up a slew of measures to prevent any sort of inducement of voters. There will be 148 check-posts with monitoring of State borders with Karnataka, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. “The enforcement agencies are directed to work in a coordinated approach rather than in silos,’‘ he said, adding that a special application would be used for better co-ordination and sharing of information “to dry up inflow of liquor, cash, freebies and drugs.’‘

The banks have been directed to monitor online transactions of money transfers with the support of the State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) of Telangana, he added. 

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