Punjab Newsline, Shimla, April 3-
Chief Secretary, Prabodh Saxena assured peaceful, fair and inducement free elections, both the Lok Sabha and the bye-polls to be held for the six ACs simultaneously while interacting with the Chief Election Commissioner, (CEC) Rajiv Kumar in the Inter-State border Video Conference Meeting here today. Chief Secretaries and DGPs besides other senior officers of 36 States and Union Territories participated in the meeting.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar stressed for a level playing field and inducement free and fair elections with equal opportunity to all the political parties and stakeholders.
Prabodh Saxena while briefing the CEC said that adequate security measures has been adopted to seal the entry points and porous interstate border to prevent any type of bogus voting, entry of illegal liquor or drugs besides an Hawk eye has been kept on any type of freebies, movement of cash and narcotics to lure or disturb the election process.
He said that overall law and order in the state was peaceful and even the first round of meetings with the neighbouring states have taken place at the Deputy Commissioner level. The social media is being monitored actively so as to identify fake news or hate speeches. Director General of Police Sanjay Kundu also briefed about the law and order preparedness and foolproof security arrangements being made for conducting smooth and violence free elections in the State.
He said that patrolling and checking at the interstate border areas have been undertaken for area dominance. The field functionaries have been directed to keep watch over the suspicious or other kinds of activities of possible criminals and to nab the Proclaimed Offenders (POs). He said that correspondence with other states has been made with a request to arrest POs. He said that awareness is being generated amongst the public to share information of the suspicious or illegal activities in and around them.
As many as 25 meetings at a level of SPs, 17 meetings at the level of DSPs and one meeting at IG level have been held with neighbouring states to curb illicit flow of narcotics or the free flow of liquor, money etc to and fro. He said that we will seal the borders with neighbouring states that will be holding elections in the earlier phases.
Chief Electoral Officer, Maneesh Garg said that all the arrangements have been made to conduct free, fair and inducement free elections in the State. Additional Chief Secretary Home, Onkar C. Sharma, Principal Secretary, Excise, Devesh Kumar, Additional Director General of Police Abhishek Trivedi, and Commissioner State Taxes and Excise, Yunus were also present in the meeting amongst other officers.