scorecardresearch
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
Advertisement

Will visit Bihar to take stock before announcing Assembly poll dates: CEC

With 72.9 million electors in the state, Bihar polls, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said, will perhaps be the largest election conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic till date.

Will visit Bihar to take stock before announcing Assembly poll dates: CECSunil Arora said that elections in India pose formidable challenges on account of the large electorate, geographical and linguistic diversity and differing climatic conditions. (File photo)

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar will soon visit Bihar to take stock of poll preparation on the ground before announcing the dates for Assembly election in the state.

Arora said this on Monday at an international webinar, in which poll management bodies from across the world shared their experiences of conducting elections amidst the pandemic.

The Commission was hosting the webinar on the completion of its one-year chairmanship of the Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB). AWEB is the largest association of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) in the world and has 115 EMBs as members.

Advertisement

Arora said that elections in India pose formidable challenges on account of the large electorate, geographical and linguistic diversity and differing climatic conditions. With 72.9 million electors in the state, Bihar polls, Arora said, will perhaps be the largest election conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic till date.

Highlighting the impact of Covid-19 on election preparation, Arora said that the maximum number of voters at a polling station in Bihar has been reduced from 1,500 to 1,000. The number of polling stations has been increased by 40 per cent — from 65,000 to 1,00,000. These changes have huge implications, he said, in terms of logistics and manpower.

Festive offer

Among the countries that made presentations on Monday about conducting elections this year amid the pandemic were Fiji, Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, South Africa, Bangladesh and Malawi.

First uploaded on: 22-09-2020 at 06:18 IST
Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
close