​Lucknow: A one-day training workshop for officials involved in checking electronic voting machines (EVMs) and VVPAT machines was held in Lucknow on Sunday ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.The workshop was organised for district election officers, deputy district election officers and first-level checking (FLC) supervisors from 33 districts. Officials from seven divisions. Lucknow, Kanpur, Moradabad, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Ayodhya and Devipatan. attended the programme at the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Uttar Pradesh Academy of Administration and Management on Sultanpur Road.The training focused on the FLC of EVMs, which is the first major step in preparing the machines for elections. Similar workshops have already been held in Gautam Budh Nagar and Varanasi.Chief electoral officer Uttar Pradesh Navdeep Rinwa said engineers from Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited would inspect every control unit, ballot unit and VVPAT machine. They will check the functioning of buttons, wires, connections and other technical features.After the inspection, 5% of the machines will be selected randomly for mock polling. Between 1,200 and 1,500 votes will be recorded on these machines to confirm that every button works properly and records the correct vote.Rinwa said representatives of recognised political parties would be informed about the FLC schedule and allowed to remain present throughout the process. They can also select machines randomly and conduct mock polls themselves. The FLC will be conducted at district headquarters and is expected to continue for two to three weeks in each district. The exercise will be held daily from 10am to 7pm and will be monitored through live webcasting by the Election Commission, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office and district officials.Senior deputy election commissioner Manish Garg urged all recognised political parties to send representatives and participate in the process. The FLC of machines likely to be used in the elections is expected to be completed across Uttar Pradesh by Oct-end.
