Official machinery to be poll-ready by Jan end

State Chief Electoral Officer Sathyabrata Sahoo on Thursday chaired a video conference meeting and reviewed the voter’s rolls preparation by district collectors.

Later in the day, the CEO invited TN Governor Banwarilal Purohit to be the chief guest of National Voters’ day celebrations in Chennai scheduled on January 25.

“By January end poll officials would be ready with the EVMs and the electoral photo rolls and the state machinery is all prepared for an early election by the April first week,” informed public election department sources said.

CEO Sahoo is also waiting for the reports from the district collectors on the first level checking of EVM machines. The process is over in seven districts, including Ariyalur, Kancheepuram, Pudukkottai, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Tiruvarur and Vellore and task will be completed in a week’s time in all the remaining 30 districts, sources said. The CEO will also be evaluating the reports from collectors on increasing the number of polling stations in all the populated districts for following coronavirus protocols.

Meanwhile, the EC is also identifying TN IAS officers in the rank of principal secretary to be posted as deputy election commissioners in Delhi.

Earlier, Sandeep Saxena served in the post and it is a usual practice to appoint officers from a pollbound state to serve in Delhi so that the coordination is smooth.