Telangana: Vote from home facility for senior citizens, differently abled

Senior citizens aged 80 and above, and differently abled persons with more than 40 percent disability, will be able to vote from home during the forthcoming Assembly elections in Telangana.

Hyderabad: Senior citizens aged 80 and above, and differently abled persons with more than 40 percent disability, will be able to vote from home during the forthcoming Assembly elections in Telangana.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said for the first time in Telangana, this facility would be made available for all senior citizens aged 80 and above to vote from their home, if they wish. They would have to submit applications on the ECI website, eci.giv.in, for utilizing this service. Similarly, for differently abled persons (more than 40 per cent disability), arrangements were being made to facilitate them to cast vote from their home, he said, adding that the ECI would then deploy a team along with representatives of political parties to visit their homes and enable them cast their votes. The entire exercise would be videographed with a small compartment to ensure privacy as in polling booths.

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Speaking to media persons here on Thursday, the CEC said elaborate arrangements would be made with a special focus on curbing inducements in the ensuing elections in the State. The Election Commission had also made it mandatory for the political parties to upload details of candidates with criminal antecedents on their websites or social media platforms. This apart, they would have to publish the details in one national and one regional newspaper as well.

Similarly, it was mandatory for candidates with criminal antecedents to publish information during their campaign period at least on three different occasions in newspapers and television channels, he said.

The political parties, which had met the Commission officials during the last two days, had appealed to ensure that the elections were free, fair and inducement-free. In this regard, the CEC said, 22 enforcement agencies have been given specific instructions to act swiftly and arrest all kinds of malpractices.

On the new trend of distributing money using payments apps, the CEC said the RBI and State-level Banking Committee had been directed to closely monitor, besides an appeal was also made to National Payments Corporation of India to track any abnormalities.

Appealing the people to download, C Vigil app in their mobile apps, the CEC said people can share pictures and videos of any malpractice or other irregularities in their vicinity. The identity of the users would not be disclosed and the ECI would act within 100 minutes and share the report with the users, he explained.

The CEC said along with Telangana, the final Electoral Rolls of four other States were also published on Wednesday. In Telangana, there were 3.17 crore voters, of which, the female voters were almost equal to that of male voters. This was a very encouraging sign, he added.