To make political parties accountable for fielding candidates with criminal background, chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that parties will have to publish why they chose a “criminal candidate”.
“Parties will have to inform if they did not get any other candidate in the constituency. They will have to tell the reason,”
Talking about ECI's KYC (Know your candidate) initiative, CEC Kumar said, “This is a full disclosure to the voters. If any candidate has a criminal background then that candidate will have to publish advertisements thrice in newspapers and channels and inform what charges he faces, because the voter has a right to know the background of the candidate. Not only this, the political party will also have to publish why they had to choose a criminal candidate,” he said.
Rajasthan goes for poll:
- 2.73 crore male voters and 2.51 crore female voters will exercise their rights
- More than 18k voters over 100 years of age
- 21.9 lakh first time voters in Rajasthan
Kumar said that senior citizens and persons with disabilities will be provided with postal ballot facility if they fill form 12D within five days of nominations.
“Pick and drop facility will also be provided to them if they seek. There are 11.8 lakh voters above 80 years out of which 18,462 are more than 100 years old in Rajasthan. We will provide them facility of vote from home if they seek,” he assured.
According to election commission, there will be live webcast of 50% of the polling booth in Rajasthan. Besides youth including women will manage 1600 booths.
“We are committed to conduct free and fair election in Rajasthan. For that we are planning a right monitoring of every booth. There are 2.73 male voters, 2.51 female voters and 604 transgenders, who will vote, CEC informed
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