Sandesh Prabhudesai
26 Feb 1999
The election commission has clearly indicated its intention to hold
early polls in Goa, presently under the President’s rule, probably by May end. The
final decision however would be taken only after its officials visit the state.
Changing its earlier 100-day plan of summary revision of the electoral
roll, the EC has now sent instructions to its local office here to prepone the programme
by one month and complete it by mid-April, compressing the whole schedule to 45 days. The
earlier plan was to start it by April, with the final publication of the roll by mid-July.
As summary revision of the electoral roll is a must as per the
provisions of the Representation of Peoples’ Act, confusion prevailed in the tourist
state over the possibility of holding earlier Assembly polls despite governor Lt Gen
(Retd) J F R Jacob’s strong plea to hold it by May.
If not, then the EC had no other option than to hold it in November,
when the elections were scheduled even otherwise, due to monsoons in between. But
situation changed as the Goa Assembly was dissolved early this month prematurely, imposing
the President’s rule.
Despite examinations, the local electoral office has now chalked out a
plan to involve one primary teacher at every polling booth, which is a primary school
here, in the summary revision process for a fortnight from 8 March. After scrutiny, the
final roll would be then published by 20 April.
While this would clear the major hurdle in holding polls by May end,
the EC has also decided to use electronic machines at all 1135 polling booths in the
state. Accordingly, the local office is already contacting states like Manipur and Delhi
to get additional 1000 machines, including the ones for back-up arrangement.
Your Comments Please
