First randomisation of EVMs held in Bandipora

Bandipora, Aug 24: As part of ongoing preparations for General Election to Legislative Assembly (GELA) 2024, the first randomization of EVMs was today held at mini Secretariat Bandipora.

The Randomisation held under the supervision of District Election Officer (DEO) Bandipora, Manzoor Ahmad Qadri was attended by Dy.DEO Mohammad Rafeeq Bhat, RO 15- Bandipora Shabir Ahmad Wani, RO 16-Gurez Mukhtar Ahmad, Nodal Officer EVM Irfan Bahadur, Nodal Officer MCMC Aadil Manzoor Wani, Representatives of political Parties including BJP, INC, NC, AIP, NYP and other concerned.

On the occasion, the DEO briefed the participants regarding the process of randomization, ensuring the fairness and integrity of the electoral process

He emphasized the importance of transparency and adherence to the Election Commission of India’s guidelines during the process.

The DEO said that, randomization of EVMs is a step of transparency and is an essential part of election preparations, helping to allocate EVMs to different assembly constituencies and Polling stations thereby upholding the principles of neutrality and fairness.

The randomization was carried out using dedicated software designed for this purpose to allocate Ballot Units, Control Units, and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units for three assembly segments including 14- Sonawari, 15-Bandipora and 16- Gurez.

The list of EVMs post randomisation was handed over to all political parties present in the randomization process. On the occasion, it was revealed that subsequent randomization phases will determine the specific allocation of EVMs to polling stations.

The whole process was video recorded as per the guidelines of ECI.