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Jharkhand News: For the first time in Jharkhand, elections are going to be held through ballot paper. For the municipal elections to be held here, the State Election Commission decided to conduct voting through ballot paper. Preparations have been started.
Report: Niranjan Kumar Singh
Ranchi: The upcoming municipal elections in Jharkhand will be held this time not through EVM but through ballot paper. Taking a big decision, the State Election Commission has announced that for the first time in the state, municipal elections will be conducted through ballot paper instead of EVMs. After this decision of the Commission, the discussion intensified from political parties to administrative staff.
Till now, whenever municipal elections have been held in Jharkhand, EVMs have been used in them. But this time the circumstances have changed. The State Election Commission says that this decision had to be taken due to insufficient availability of EVMs. The number of EVMs required by the Commission is not available in the state. For this one has to depend on other states, but neighboring states including Bihar have expressed their inability to provide EVMs. At the same time, the EVM manufacturing company has also asked for at least one year’s time to provide new machines.
different colored ballot papers
Keeping these reasons in mind, the Commission has decided to conduct municipal elections through ballot paper. State Election Commission Secretary Radheshyam Prasad said that complete preparations are being made to conduct elections through ballot paper. There will be different colored ballot papers for different posts in municipal elections. There will be one color ballot paper for the post of President, while a different color ballot paper will be given for the ward member. Voters will get two ballot papers during voting and will have to put them in different ballot boxes.
Ballot papers will be printed in Ranchi only
State Election Commission Secretary Radheshyam Prasad said that sufficient number of ballot boxes are available in the state. Ballot boxes have been assessed according to the number of polling stations in all the districts. Painting and repair work of the old black box has also been started, so that there is no problem of any kind on the day of voting. At the same time, the Commission has also taken an important decision regarding the printing of ballot paper. Earlier the printing of ballot paper was done in Kolkata, but this time it has been planned to be printed locally in Ranchi. For this, the process of selection of printing press has been started. The Commission believes that this will save both time and resources, and the security system will also be controlled better.
