The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

LUCKNOW, Nov 24, 2011 -- The 2012 Vidhan Sabha elections will have a lot of focus on election expenditure by a candidate. Thus, even though the election dates are yet to be announced, the Election Commission of India is ready with an elaborate plan to keep an eye on every single penny being spent by a candidate.

As a part of the same, a 24x7 Call Centre will be established at the district level to operate from the date of notification of election. Chief electoral officer, UP, Umesh Sinha, said that the call centre will be given a toll-free telephone number with three or four hunting lines which would be widely publicized. This would enable the public to inform the ECI about corrupt practices related to election.

A senior officer would be responsible for receiving and recording the complaints at the call centre and passing them on to the respective officer for action, without any delay. The call centre would be provided with sufficient staff to man the telephone lines around the clock. Election expenditure may be divided into legal and illegal categories.

Election campaign activities such as holding public meetings, rallies, canvassing through posters, banners, handbills or advertisements in print or electronic media is considered to be legal. But activities like giving money, food or liquor to the electors with the intention to influence them is illegal. Besides the call centre, the election commission would bank on an elaborate internal mechanism for the purpose.

The onus of tracking money spent by a candidate on campaigning on a day-to-day basis would lie with the district election officers (DEO). The DEOs would be elaborately supported by expenditure observers who would be officers of the Indian Revenue Services or central excise and customs department. These officers would be assigned an area of work. The observers would be elaborately supported by a team of assistants. The commission will also set up video surveillance teams for each assembly constituency. And if need be, more than one such team would be deployed in the field. Flying squads and static surveillance teams would also work for the same cause. Information gathered by field officers will be handled by account teams - one each for an assembly segment.

These teams would report to the expenditure monitoring cells that would be headed by an additional district magistrate rank officer in a district. The district would send their reports to the office of the chief electoral officer for compliance of orders. Section 77(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 makes it mandatory for every candidate to keep a separate and correct account of all expenditure incurred or authorised by him or by his election agent, between the date on which he was nominated and the date of declaration of the result of election, both dates inclusive. Failure to maintain the account is an electoral offense under Section 171-1 of the Indian Penal Code. The CEO, UP has already issued directives in this regard.

Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

About ContactCenterWorld.com:
Contact Center World. (www.ContactCenterWorld.com), The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking