Local body govt servants barred from counting duty by EC

The Election Commission of India has barred local body government servants from participating in counting duty of Lok Sabha Elections 2009. Counting is to be held on Saturday nationwide.

The Commission in it’s latest order has said, ‘The Commission desires that for counting of votes, the staff used by the DEOs shall be government servants other than those who are working under local bodies. In so far as Counting Agents are concerned, any person who has been provided security by the state government, MLA, MLC, Minister or Mayor shall not be allowed to perform duty as Counting Agents of Candidates. Eligible persons falling outside the above-mentioned category can be appointed as Counting Agents by the Candidates.’

Some other major recent decisions passed by the Election Commission of India in connection with Lok Sabha Election Counting process are given below:

-The Councilor or Member of Municipal Corporation or Municipality can also become Counting Agent.

-Each candidate be allowed to appoint one more counting agent to watch the counting at the RO/ARO table in addition to the counting agents appointed to watch the counting in each of the table in a Hall for the counting purpose.

-As per the provisions of Section 50 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, a contesting candidate (whether he is a sitting MP/MLA/MLC) has a right to be present in the Counting Hall in addition to Counting Agents. They shall be permitted with a stipulation that security persons with arms should not get into counting hall. Such candidates should be asked to give an undertaking that they are surrendering their security on their own voluntarily to sit in the counting hall. The only exception shall be in the case of SPG protectees or other similarly placed persons who can be permitted to be accompanied only with one SPG personnel in plain clothes.

-The Observers will satisfy themselves about the fairness of counting of votes and accuracy of compilation of result and will also have to choose 2 EVMs (Control Unites) at random at the end of each round of counting for parallel verification.

-The Commission has also directed that there shall be one Govt. of India official on every counting table as counting micro observer for counting purpose. The micro-observer checks and ensures that the purity of counting process is maintained and the results at each table are correctly tabulated.

-The Commission has permitted that the observer may deploy an additional micro-observer for each of the Counting Halls under the Observer to undertake the random parallel checking of any 2 EVMs/tables
in every round of the counting and to report to the observer.