EC to continue tech-based initiatives

The Election Commission is likely to repeat in the upcoming Assembly polls several new initiatives it successfully tried in Bihar – ranging from deploying drones to help security forces maintain law and order to the use of new software to manage campaigning, polling and counting.

After conducting the polls in Bihar, the commission will now have to prepare for a series of elections in several states in 2016 and 2017.

The EC officials said the new initiatives successfully tried in Bihar would also be put to use in the states like Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which would go to polls in 2016. The States, which will go to polls in 2017, include Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Uttarakhand. The EC put to use three newly developed software in Bihar. The new software – Suvidha, Samadhan and Sugam – were developed to ease the process of granting permission to political parties to hold rallies and issue other approvals related to campaigning, redress of grievances and acquisition and deployment of vehicles for poll-personnel respectively.

The EC officials said 99 per cent of the total requests processed by the software were decided upon within the stipulated timeframe of 24 hours. The polling in all the five phases in Bihar had been by and large peaceful, despite anticipations about breach of law and order, violence, attempts to trigger communal strife and attacks by ultra-left insurgents. The EC used drones not only to keep watch on vulnerable areas but also to ensure free and fair polling.

With the EC sending out 25 crore SMSes to encourage voters to cast their votes, the just-concluded polls in Bihar saw an all-time high turnout of over 57 per cent. The poll-panel did a vulnerability mapping well ahead of the polls and ensured deployment of central paramilitary force personnel in all polling stations.