CEO Odisha office on toes as polls draw near

Bhubaneswar: In a bid to ensure free and fair polls and streamline the entire process in Odisha, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has divided its office into five cells, official sources said.

These cells are working 24 hours and keeping an eye on every aspect of campaign and conduct by political parties in the fray.

Sources said the observer cell has been assigned the task to prepare a list of observers for the elections who usually come from outside the state. Besides, the cell would chalk out the programmes of observers like who will visit which district and analyse the submitted reports.

The media certification and monitoring cell would analyse news and advertisements published in various publications. Officials of this cell also check news and advertisements submitted by political parties and candidates to get them certified and telecast in media.

"If a political party wants to telecast audio CD or video CD, they have to apply with the media certification cell 48 hours before the telecast time and get a certification. Otherwise they cannot play it publicly," said Naba Nayak, Additional Secretary, CEO's office.

Similarly, the election expenditure and monitoring cell keeps a tab on the rallies expenditures as well as money spent by individual candidates and prepares a report for the CEO.

The model code of conduct cell’s job is to look for any violation of model code by politicians or political parties and makes report.

Meanwhile, the conduct cell takes care of EVM management, candidates list preparation, law and order, advertisement, poll timings and counting, said Jyoti Prakash Das, Joint Secretary at CEO's office.