ITANAGAR, 16 Jan: A hands-on ‘training and sensitisation programme’ on electronic voting machine (EVM) and voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) for the representatives of political parties was organised at the Nirvachan Bhavan here on Tuesday.
Representatives of the Aam Aadmi Party, the Gana Suraksha Party, the People’s Party of Arunachal, the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar), the National People’s Party, the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee, the Janata Dal (United), and the Bharatiya Janata Party participated in the training, according to an official release.
Queries raised by the representatives, relating to adding candidates’ names during the commissioning of the EVM, de-novo protocols during shifting of EVMs from one district to another, and security of the EVM strongroom were cleared during the programme.
The representatives suggested increasing the number of flying squads for effective surveillance; counting of votes on the same day of the poll; use of drones in “unreachable shadow areas,” etc.
State-level master trainer RK Sona presented an overview on the EVM and the VVPAT, while Yupia DIO Tad Issac demonstrated the functioning of the EVM and the VVPAT, and allowed the participants to have a hands-on experience on the same.
Chief Electoral Officer Pawan Kumar Sain informed the participants that, “with a view to create massive awareness on EVM/VVPAT to all voters across the state, mobile demonstration vans are going to be launched on 17 January in all assembly constituencies.”
“In compliance with the instructions of the ECI, 42 EVM demonstration centres have been set up and 74 EVM mobile demonstration vans have been set up in all district headquarters and the offices of the returning officers across the state. These are mainly set up to make the voters and citizens to have live experience on the use of EVM and VVPAT and sensitise them to the operations of the EVM,” the release said.
The CEO’s OSD Ira Singhal also spoke.
