New Delhi [India], April 16 : The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday started preparations for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections, with over 200 booth-level agents participating in a national-level training programme at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management, Delhi.
According to sources, the ECI has stepped up efforts to conduct a smooth, free and fair election set to happen later this year.
Notably, this will be the first Assembly polls Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar will be overseeing following his appointment in February of this year.
However, his appointment has not been without controversy, as Congress leader criticised his appointment, filing a dissent note and asking the central government to delay the appointment till the Supreme Court hears the plea asking for the inclusion of the Chief Justice in the panel for the appointments.
Meanwhile, apart from the 200 BLAs from Bihar, a total of 1 lakh officers will be trained at the IIIDEM in the coming years. The CEC had inaugurated the training on March 26, and underlined the importance of the training.
"India's election is the biggest election in the world. To conduct this election, the Election Commission sets up 10,50,000 booths. In every polling booth, there is a booth-level officer who helps in making the electoral roll and goes to houses to check the names in the electoral roll," CEC Kumar said.
In a major step to strengthen this vital process, CEC Gyanesh Kumar announced the launch of a training program for booth-level officers, noting, "We have set up a training for the first time...in this training, we will train 1,00,000 booth-level officers."
As per an official statement from the EC, over 1 lakh BLOs with an average of one BLO per 10 polling stations will be trained in such training programmes over the next few years. These well-trained BLOs will form a corps of Assembly Level Master Trainers (ALMTs) to strengthen the entire network of BLOs nationwide, who are the first and most important interface between the 100 Crore electors and the Commission.
According to the release, "The training is planned to familiarise the BLOs with their roles and responsibilities as per the RP Act 1950, the Registration of Elector Rules 1960 and instructions of the Commission issued from time to time and to equip them with requirements of filling relevant forms for an error free updation of electoral rolls. They will be familiarised with IT applications designed to support their work."