'The EC is a sacred institution.' 'In the last few years, more than once, we have found the EC bending over backwards to accommodate the government.'
After Nasim Zaidi retired as Chief Election Commissioner in July, there was a vacancy in the poll panel.
The Election Commission will hold the 2019 general election under Arora .
"For the Lok Sabha elections, we are making meticulous planning on all fronts including electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT)," he said.
He also said the Bihar chief electoral officer has already responded to everything. The EC held four press conferences on counting day on November 10 to respond to various aspects of the process, Arora pointed out.
Arora gave the example of recently-held JEE and NEET examinations, saying thousands of candidates from various district across India came out to write the test.
CEC Sunil Arora will meet former heads of Central Board of Direct Taxes and Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs on Friday to discuss ways to keep a check on black money disbursements in South India, especially Tamil Nadu.
Former Uttar Pradesh-cadre Indian Administrative Service officer Anup Chandra Pandey was appointed as an election commissioner.
With the Election Commission (EC) facing flak from some quarters for announcing eight-phase Assembly polls in West Bengal, officials on Friday said the polling had to be spread out due to festivals, the movement of security forces and an increased number of polling stations keeping in mind the Covid protocols.
He also lamented that EVMs are being used as a 'football' and some sections are doing a 'motivated slugfest' over their use.
I had said that eloquence of silence is always difficult but far more desirable to see the election process through instead of creating ill-timed controversies.
Sushil Chandra will conduct the UP, Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand elections before he retires in May 2022.
The three commissioners, including the Chief Election Commissioner, are entitled to a salary which is "equal to the salary of a judge of the Supreme Court", according to the provisions of a law governing their conditions of service.
His tenure will end in December this year.
Ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal on Thursday met the full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and alleged that the Border Security Force (BSF) is threatening people in the border areas of the state to cast their votes in favour of a particular political party.
The elections to legislative assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Odisha will be held simultaneously along with the Lok Sabha polls
The CEC said 7.2 crore single-use gloves for voters to press electronic voting machine buttons, more than seven lakh units of hand sanitiser, about 46 lakh masks, about six lakh personal protection equipment (PPE) kits, 7.6 lakh units of face shields have been arranged.
'...the President is pleased to accept the resignation tendered by Shri Ashok Lavasa, Election Commissioner with effect from the 31st August, 2020,' the notification said.
Counting of votes in all elections will be held on May 2.
Lavasa would soon be joining the Asian Development Bank as vice president
The system of 'selecting' an election commissioner, which is before the Supreme Court, must be institutionalised.
Lavasa said, 'My view is very clear that transparency is important ... minority view should be included and there should be time-bound procedures'.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday appointed Chandra as 24th CEC on Monday.
The voting will be held on November 30, December 7, 12, 16 and 20.
Lavasa, a career bureaucrat, joined as Election Commissioner on January 23, 2018, and being senior most on the poll panel would have become CEC in April next year after the term of incumbent Sunil Arora ends.
Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal, Odisha and Sikkim will also be held simultaneously, the Election Commission said.
A Trinamool Congress delegation met the Election Commission (EC) on Friday and demanded a high-level probe into an alleged attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram and claimed it was not an 'unfortunate incident', but a conspiracy.
The election is likely to witness a three-cornered contest involving the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress.
Arora also said he is confident that the EC will be able to hold the next set of assembly polls on time and the internal exercise for those is already underway.
On a day Ashok Lavasa's decision to recuse from model code of conduct complaints became public, the EC said the 'full commission' would meet on May 21 to discuss the issue of dissent and 'related matters'.
'Just as the monkey god needed a Jambavan to prod him into realising his superpowers, so did the poll panel need a poke from the Supreme Court into remembering it had an armoury of powers at its disposal to stop the infractions,' notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The schedule for Gujarat will be announced separately.
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