Chandigarh, 2 April – Reacting on the sting operation shown on a TV news channel on Tuesday late evening, the District Election Officer Shekhar Vidyarthi swung into action and got FIRs registered against all the three Booth Level Officers (BLOs) on Tuesday night itself. They were alleged to have taken bribe for preparing fake votes. Besides lodging FIRs, Mr Vidyarthi has also recommended disciplinary action against them to their parent departments. The Police have taken them into custody.
The three BLOs accused of malpractice include Ashok Kumar, BLO of Booth Number 83 in Laxman Vihar, Karan Singh BLO of Booth Number 86 in the same colony and Mahesh Kumar BLO of Booth Number 03 in Mianwali colony. All three of them have been booked under Sections 32 and 134 of Representative of People’s Act 1950, 1951 in Civil Lines Police Station here.
When the information about sting operation by a famous TV News Channel reached the Deputy Commissioner Shekhar Vidyarthi at once swung into action and directed the Electoral Registering Officer (ERO) of Gurgaon Assembly cum SDM Gurgaon OM Prakash to conduct preliminary inquiry into the matter. Afterwards acting as per the guidelines of the Election Commission of India, Mr Vidyarthi ordered to get FIR lodged against all the three accused. On the complaint of the ERO Om Prakash, FIR was lodged on Tuesday night itself and Police took them into custody.
Meanwhile, on the directions of Mr Vidyarthi, all Form-6 applications (required for inclusion of names in the Electoral Rolls) collected by these accused BLOs have been taken into custody and District Election Office has initiated further inquiry to ascertain facts. The work of distribution of voters’ slips has also been withdrawn from these BLOs and it has been assigned to another officials. The Chief Election Officer Haryana Srikant Walgad and Election Commission of India have also been intimated about the action taken. There is provision of imprisonment of 3 months to 2 years with fine for breach in election duty under the RPA Act.
A Software Powerhouse ?
Yesterday , when I went to polling booth , there was a chaos , with a number of people complaining that their names were missing from the Electoral Rolls ( Voter Lists )
As per news-reports , in Mumbai alone , some 50,000 people returned home without casting their votes – including Deepak Parekh ! Altogether , names of some 15 lakh voters ( out of a total of 98 lakh ) were missing !
Then there are some 300 million people who will simply won’t walk down to the nearest polling booths , and wait for 1 hour to cast their votes ( – assuming that some 40 % of the 814 million eligible voters do not exercise their right to vote )
WHY ?
Going out to vote is becoming a big hassle
COULD IT BE OTHERWISE ?
Sure , if Central Government and the Election Commission care to implement my suggestion for developing a mobile App for voting . I called it , VotesApp
see .. hemenparekh.in/2013/08/votesapp.html
Or , just type in Google , ” VotesApp ”
HOW WILL IT HELP ?
> No need for 930,000 polling booths / EVMs / Ink / Papers etc
Every voter’s own mobile becomes a miniature EVM !
Any registered Voter can vote from anywhere in the World !
> Nor any need to deploy 1,100,000 people to conduct the polls
> No need for millions of Police / Military personnel
> No need for months of advance preparations, across entire country
> Voting can be completed in just ONE day – instead of over 6 weeks –
and results can be declared next day !
> Voting could be 95 % or more !
> No worry for booth-capture
> No bogus voting ( Bio-metric ID from built-in camera )
> No duplicate voting ( Self-destruct after single usage )
> No worry for any terrorist attacks
> Enormous saving of time for Voters
> No need to declare a public holiday – costing thousands of crores
worth of production
> Central Government will save, at least , Rs 2,000 Crores .
If business-friendly BJP government comes to power , it would not
hesitate to earn Rs 20,000 crores , by enabling 15 million Indian
businesses to advertise to 814 million voters , thru this mobile VotesApp –
sharply targeting by Gender / Age / Marital Status / City / Street /
Education / Income Tax paid / Employed or Jobless ..etc
> No need for Central Government to stop taking even routine decisions
If a tiny country like Estonia ( population 1.6 million ) can elect its Members of Parliament thru a VotesApp type mobile App , why can’t we ?
Already 900+ million Indians have mobiles – all of which , will soon become Smart Phones
And we call our country , a ” Software Powerhouse ” !
* hemen parekh ( 25 April 2014 / Mumbai )