Anandpur Sahib: General Election Observer of Anandpur Sahib Dr. Heera Lal, with the aim of turning the Election Commission’s slogan of conducting ‘Green Elections’ into ground reality, held a meeting with all the District Election Officers, District Police Chiefs and Assistant Returning Officers of the Parliamentary constituency in Mohali today and asked them to plant as many trees as possible and ensure minimum use of plastic during training, departure and return of teams and counting centers in view of the carbon emissions during the election process.
He said that in the light of the Election Commission of India’s concept of ‘Green Elections’, our slogan should be free, fair, transparent and environment-friendly election process. He said that for this purpose, while political parties / candidates should be encouraged not to use ‘single use plastic’, the government staff engaged in the election system should also be encouraged to become a part and ambassador of this ‘Green Elections’ campaign.
General Election Observer Dr. Heera Lal explained in detail that when we train polling personnel, we should not spread garbage at that place and should take care of cleanliness. Similarly, on the day when the polling parties are dispatched from the dispatch centres to the polling stations and later brought back the next evening to deposit the EVMs, cleanliness should also be taken care of and ‘single-use plastic’ should be avoided.
The Returning Officers/District Election Officers/Assistant Returning Officers were asked to plan to give necessary guidelines to the polling parties for the complete implementation of the ‘Green Election’ campaign at the polling stations.
He asked to make arrangements for necessary facilities for the voters coming to all the polling stations on the day of polling and also to arrange various types of plants for them, so that the voters who come to cast their votes at the polling stations can be inspired to celebrate the festival of democracy by planting plants in their homes or fields. He said that in this way we will be able to implement the concept of ‘Green Election’ in the true sense by planting lakhs of plants in a day.
Along with this, he also asked to take the goal of increasing the voting percentage during the Lok Sabha elections-2024 as a resolution. Dr. Heera Lal, who gained national fame by increasing the voting percentage by 10.5 percent in Lok Sabha elections 2019 as District Magistrate in Banda (Uttar Pradesh), said that for this purpose, each Assistant Returning Officer should select the booth showing the highest voting percentage at Panchayat level, Assembly level and Lok Sabha level and this time, details should be taken from the concerned booth level officer about the factors increasing the voting percentage at the remaining polling stations as well.
On this occasion, he also specially honored the Booth Level Officers who contributed to the highest voting percentage in 09 Assembly constituencies of Anandpur Sahib Parliamentary constituency during Lok Sabha Elections-2019. These include BLO Jaswinder Singh of booth number 132, Garhshankar (81.80 percent), BLO Surjeet Kumar of booth number 132, Banga (78.76 percent), BLO Paramjeet Kaur of booth number 209, Nawanshahr (83 percent), Narinder Singh of booth number 160, Balachaur (88.86 percent), BLO Jaswinder Singh of booth number 41, Anandpur Sahib (80.70 percent), BLO Phuleshwar Kumar of booth number 170 (89.29 percent), BLO Harinder Kaur of booth number 14, Chamkaur Sahib (78 percent), BLO Ajay Kumar of booth number 74, Kharar (85.05 percent) and BLO Harpinderjeet Singh of booth number SAS Nagar (83.54 percent). Later, General Observer Dr. Heera Lal, Police Observer Sandeep Gajanan Dewan, Expenditure Observer Shilpi Sinha, Returning Officer Anandpur Sahib Preeti Yadav, District Election Officer SAS Nagar Ashika Jain, District Election Officer SBS Nagar Navjot Pal Singh Randhawa, SSP Ropar Gulneet Singh Khurana, SSP SAS Nagar Dr. Sandeep Garg, SSPS BS Nagar Dr. Mehtab Singh besides Assistant Returning Officers related to nine Assembly Constituencies of the Parliamentary Constituency also planted saplings under the concept of ‘Green Elections’ at District Administrative Complex Mohali.
On the occasion, pledge was also taken by school children and group observers and DC, SSP and ARO to plant one sapling each as part of environmental protection and not to use ‘Single Use Plastic’ on the day of polling. On the occasion, General Observer also launched a sticker campaign to make voters aware through supply of domestic gas cylinders.
