DMK urges ECI to ban flying drones in vicinity of strong room, counting centres
The CEO assured them that a direction would be issued to state police to maintain a radius of 500 metre from strong rooms-cum-counting centres in the state as 'no drone flying zone', Elango told the journalists following his meeting with the CEO at Secretariat.
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CHENNAI: Rajya Sabha member and DMK functionary N R Elango on Monday petitioned Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu Satyabrata Sahoo to declare 'no drone flying zone' within 500 metres of strong room and counting centres in the state and guarantee the foolproof surveillance mechanism without any technical glitches in the premises of the counting centres.
The CEO assured them that a direction would be issued to state police to maintain a radius of 500 metre from strong rooms-cum-counting centres in the state as 'no drone flying zone', Elango told the journalists following his meeting with the CEO at Secretariat.
The electronic voting machines along with VVPAT used in 68,321 polling stations for the April 19 polling in all 39 constituencies were kept in the strong rooms in as many as 39 counting centres in the state.
He continued that they have petitioned the CEO as per the direction of the party leader M K Stalin following the malfunctioning of the webcasting of the strong rooms in the Government Polytechnic College in Ooty for 26 minutes two days ago.
Citing the District Electoral Officer's report, the CEO said that CCTV cameras were functioning. However, the screen went off due to a short circuit and it was restored. The candidates in the fray and their agents were taken to a strong room to iron out their doubts and prove that the sealed door of the strong room was intact, Elango.
"We urged the CEO to avert such incidents henceforth and take all precautionary measures, " he said.
On BJP candidates' charges that several thousands of voters' names were removed from the voters' list, Elango ridiculed how people do politics in social media aware about the existing mechanism. The ECI has been carrying out special summary revision of the voters' list periodically and also sharing the information with political parties well in advance, apart from conducting special camps for inclusion, deletion and change of address of the voters. "What have they (BJP) been doing prior to the election?, " he asked.