In light of the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2024, a meeting was held in Ahmedabad with representatives of political parties, chaired by the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), P Bharathi.

Gujarat is to undergo polling in the third phase on May 7 for 26 Lok Sabha seats and bye elections for 5 assembly seats, for which the notification is to be issued on Apr 12.

In light of this, the CEO chaired the meeting, where various topics that parties and candidates would need to keep in mind during the election period were discussed and informed about the mandatory norms.

Code of conduct and transparent elections

CEO Bharathi reiterated the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) priority to conduct constraint-free, fair, and transparent elections.

Additional CEO Kuldeep Arya informed the political parties about the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct, expenditure monitoring, nomination papers, and election campaign, as well as various permissions and IT applications prepared by the ECI.

Joint CEO AB Patel provided detailed information about the various formats of information to be declared through criminal antecedents, voter lists, polling stations and staff, the EVM (electronic voting machine), home voting, and the postal ballot.

Joint CEO PD Palsana informed over the pre-certification of political advertisements in various media for publicity and paid news, as per the order of the Supreme Court and the instructions of the ECI.

Ahmedabad district election officer (DEO) and Collector, Praveena DK, and other officials were also present in this meeting.

CEO Bharathi appealed to the parties to cooperate with the election machinery to conduct the elections in a peaceful atmosphere, abiding by the ECI guidelines.

Also read:

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