As the countdown for the first phase of LokSabha elections 2024 begins where the four Assembly segments of Churachandpur district are going to the polls, the district, under the auspices of District Election Officer (DEO/DC) is bustling with election activities.
The commissioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) machines for four Assembly segments of Churachandpur district in II- Outer Manipur Parliamentary Constituency which began on April 5, 2024 at the at the Strong Room Building, Mini-Secretariat Complex, Tuibong was completed today. The Strong Rooms where EVM/VVPATs are stored were sealed today evening in the presence of political parties’ representatives.
Meanwhile, with the attempt to impart education to voters about the importance of enrolment and participation in electoral process and encouraging all eligible voters to come out and cast their valuable vote on the poll day, tribal Fashion Show for school children was held today as part of SVEEP Plan 2.0 under the supervision of SVEEP Nodal Officer Vidhyamari Sridar, IAS, at District Training Centre, Tuibong, Churachandpur. The programme was organized under the initiative of District Election Officer and Zonal Education Officer, Churachandpur.
In the fashion show programme, students of various schools displayed the traditional attires of different tribes such as Thadou-Kuki, Paite, Hmar, Mizo, Vaiphei, Gangte, Simte, Zou and Kom.
SVEEP Nodal Officer, Vidhyamari Sridar, IAS, AC to DC-II Shri U Chaitanya IAS, ShriLianthansang, National Institute of Fashion School (Delhi) NIFT alumni and Smt. Esther Chingneikim, ZEO attended the function and handed over prizes to the winners.
Altogether, 32 school children attire including 16 boys and 16 girls from various schools and tribes. The campaign also aims to spread the message of the importance of Civic duty and democratic participation in the election.
Later, officials distributed caps and shirts to the participant during the programme of SVEEP campaign.
Students and staff of Gandhi Memorial High School, Vimala Raina High School, RengkaiHr Sec School, and Tuibong High School attended the programme.
At the same time, with the completion of commissioning of EVM and VVPATs today, the Strong Room where EVM machines were kept was sealed in the presence of political parties’ representatives, District Election Officer/DC Dharun Kumar, AROs and other officials.
The Ballot Unit (BU), Control Unit (CU) and VVPAT including Reserves were allocated through two phases of Randomisation and were successfully commissioned. During the Commissioning, rejected control units were replaced from the reserved machines.
A mock poll of 1000 votes on 5% randomly selected sets of machines, handpicked by the present Election Agents under the supervision of ADEO and AROs was conducted to provide veracity of the conducted commissioning procedure. A team of four engineers from ECIL were also present during the commissioning process to promptly address any emergency technical snags in the machines and to ensure everything was executed with precision and accuracy.
It may be mentioned here that, altogether 465 sets of EVM machines will be utilized for 274 polling stations and 15 special polling stations for Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) or specified voters of Churachandpur district.
Four Assembly segments of Churachandpur in II-Outer Manipur Parliamentary Constituency will go to the polls on April 19.
The final round of training for polling personnel will begin on April 12 at Churachandpur Govt College.
The Hills Journal
K. Salbung, Churachandpur
Manipur-795128