EC team to visit Punjab next week to review poll-preparedness
Wednesday, 19/10/2016
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New Delhi: An Election Commission team will visit Punjab next week and later on Uttarakhand and Goa to undertake ground level review of preparations ahead of Assembly elections due early next year in these states, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said on Tuesday.
Elections are due next year in Uttar Pradesh and Manipur.
Zaidi was speaking to reporters after inaugurating an ‘Election Museum’ in the office premises of the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi at Kashmere Gate.
“EC had begun the preparations about six months in advance. And the Commission is working according to a very tight calendar of activities. There are more than 140 activities which we have to plan before we schedule the elections. And those activities are proceeding satisfactorily,” he said. “We (EC team) have visited Manipur and UP. And next week we are visiting Punjab, followed by Uttarakhand and sometime later Goa,” the CEC said.
AAP is making its electoral debut in Punjab making the polls a triangular contest with Congress and BJP-SAD alliance already locked in a tight battle for political supremacy.
The Punjab State Election Commission recently had asked political parties in the poll-bound state to comply with the directions of the Election Commission on not using public funds and machinery to carry out any activity that amounts to advertisement for the party.
“We are now undertaking ground level review of our preparations,” Zaidi said.
On a question over the proposed Ramayan Museum in Ayodhya, he said, “We are not in election period, so it will not be appropriate for me to comment.”
