THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, March 11: The Palamu administration has started giving training to its Master Trainers ahead of the Lok Sabha election.
106 Master Trainers were given tips for flawless operation and conduct of the easy, free and fair polling.
Every presiding officer is supposed to conduct a mock poll at least one hour before the actual voting starts in the presence of the authorised polling agents/contestants, whoever may be there.
A minimum of 50 votes are to be cast in a mock poll, which the ECI mandates to facilitate the polling agents of the contestants casting one vote each.
Parshuram Tiwary is a noted Master Trainer known for his simple, easy-to-understand training. He uses simple language and builds up the confidence of the polling personnel that they can conduct polls to a high standard.
50 mock votes
Tiwary told this correspondent, “Once the mock poll is over and 50 mock votes are cast, it is to be erased/cleared from the machine’s memory, making it a zero-vote machine.”
Here, the presiding officer makes a common error. The poll officer switches off without “clearing the memory of the mock votes cast.”
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EVM to display zero votes
His advice is to clear the memory first, and the machine will display zero votes; otherwise, switching off without removing the memory renders the machine invalid for registering votes cast.
Polling agents are to be shown How to vote in the machine. A mock poll certificate with the signatures of the polling agents present/participating in the mock poll is to be readied.
“Buttons and seals are essential, and the presiding officer or others in the polling parties are expected to make a ‘cool, calm, and wise pressing of buttons,” reminded the Master Trainer Parshuram Tiwary.
Close, result and clear
“CRC has three buttons: close, result, and clear. There must not be any hurry to overtake any button. Press the buttons in order, and the machine will never become disabled,” said Tiwary.
There happens hurly burly right minutes before the closing of polling at its stipulated time.
ECI asks for patience
Here, the ECI asks for patience, such as allowing eligible voters who still need to cast votes to cast their votes within the limits of the polling station before the closing minute.
Such voters must be in the queue rather than loiter around. The polling booth official will issue them a slip, enabling them to cast votes.
Tiwary said it is the sealing of the machines once the polling gets over at its stipulated time that must be done carefully and intelligently, neither overstepping nor overlooking.
His mantra is ‘read the instructions and follow it. There will be no problem.”
The nodal officer of Karmik Koshaang Kundan Kumar, who is the additional collector here, said, “Our training programmes are on. We will have a fleet of Master Trainers to train 40 – 40 batches of polling officials. Good training is a surety to trouble-free polls at the machine level.”
