Bhubaneswar: Ahead of General Elections to Lok Sabha and Assembly, ECI has seized illegal items including cash to the tune of Rs 107.13 crore so far.
The enforcement agencies have seized Rs 1.47 crore cash, liquor worth Rs 16.21 crore, drugs value of Rs 39.01 crore, precious metals worth Rs 6.46 crore and freebies /other items worth Rs 43.96 crore from Odisha.
The ECI is on track for the highest ever seizures of inducements recorded in the 75-year history of Lok Sabha elections in the country. Enforcement Agencies have made a record seizure of over Rs 4650 crore in ECI’s resolute fight against money power even before the first phase of polling for the 18th Lok Sabha elections commences on Friday.
This marks a sharp increase over Rs 3475 crores seized during the entire Lok Sabha election in 2019. Significantly, 45% of the seizures are of drugs and narcotics, that are under the special focus of the Commission. The seizures have been possible by comprehensive planning, scaled up collaboration and unified deterrence action from agencies, proactive citizen participation and optimal engagement of technology.
In the press briefing during announcement of Parliamentary elections, CEC Rajiv Kumar stressed in his presentation on strict compliance of BCAS instructions on surveillance and inspection of non-scheduled aircrafts and helicopters by Income tax, airport authorities and SPs of concerned districts, border agencies to keep close watch on international checkposts and GST authorities to closely monitor godowns, especially makeshift godowns meant for storing freebies.
The Commission during reviews had always emphasized that there will be multi-pronged surveillance on all modes of transport – check posts and nakas for road transport, Coast guard for coastal routes and DMs and SPs alongside agencies for air routes including checking of helicopters and non-scheduled flights.
The Commission has set up a dedicated platform Election Seizure Management System (ESMS) to track the seizures. As per data, 6398 District nodal officers of various agencies, 734 state nodal officers, 59000 flying squads (FS) and Statics Surveillance Teams (SST) have been boarded on ESMS platform for exhaustive real time monitoring and updates.
All nodal officials have been trained on various aspects of using ESMS. The system took firm root during Assembly elections during 2023, when Rs 2014.26 crores was seized as against Rs 239.35 crores in the previous corresponding elections.
With successful implementation and feedback from the field in the last round of assembly elections, it has been reviewed and made robust before implementation in ongoing elections.
