New Delhi: Amid pressure from political parties against digital campaigning, the Election Commission of India has decided to allow physical campaigning for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections, ThePrint has learnt.
According to sources in the EC, in a meeting held Tuesday, the poll watchdog decided that all designated public grounds used for meetings and campaigns will be marked by the administration to ensure physical distancing, and the number of people attending the meetings would not exceed the encircled demarcations made by the administration.
Going ahead, the EC could come up with more restrictive guidelines to limit the number of people attending rallies and public meetings.
“Basically, as long as physical distancing guidelines are followed, physical campaigning will be allowed,” an official in the EC told ThePrint.
The commission has, however, not taken any decision to prevent digital campaigning from taking place, as was urged by several opposition parties in Bihar.
“It is not as though digital campaigning would not have taken place if not for Covid. As long as guidelines are adhered to, ECI has nothing to do with the mode of campaign,” the official added.
Also read: Holding Bihar polls amid Covid will put people at risk, turnout may be low: Chirag Paswan
Guidelines for counting
As far as counting is concerned, the commission has decided that there would be seven instead of 14 counting tables in a hall in order to ensure distancing.
Typically, votes for each assembly segment of a parliamentary constituency are counted in one hall. However, due to Covid-19, the commission has decided, the counting will take place in more than one hall.
Additionally, the commission would allow for immediate replacement of any polling staff, who would show Covid-like symptoms.
The commission has, however, decided against lowering the maximum number of voters to be allowed in a polling booth from 1,000 — a demand that had been made by some political parties, which urged the EC to bring down this number to 200.
“According to our analysis, given the historical voting turnout, the average number of voters per polling booth would not be more than 700… So, we have decided to stick to our earlier limit of 1,000,” the official quoted-above said.
Currently, Bihar has 72,723 polling stations to cater to approximately 7.18 crore electors.
The commission had earlier directed the CEO (chief electoral officer), Bihar, to do a detailed analysis of the logistics, etc. to ensure that a limit of 1,000 voters per polling station is maintained and auxiliary polling stations are created wherever required.
The EC had come to the conclusion that about 34,000 such auxiliary polling stations in the same building of an existing polling station or in its vicinity would be needed to ensure social distancing.
The commission is also considering the suggestion made by the BJP to increase the expenditure limit of per candidate in the assembly elections, but is yet to come up with a decision in this regard.
As of now, the EC has set a limit on the campaign expense per candidate to Rs 28 lakh. The BJP had told the EC that due to Covid-19, the candidates would need to spend more on protective gear, etc. and hence, this limit should be revised.
Also read: BJP-JDU back to harping on Lalu’s Gabbar image & Jungle Raj but it’s unlikely to work in 2020