Tiruchirappalli (TN): The Election Commission is likely to finalise the schedule for coming Lok Sabha polls in the last week of this month, Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami indicated today (Feb 14, 2004).

Next week, the Commission had lined up a series of meetings with various State and Central Government officials and finalisation of the modalities for the elections could be taken up only in the last week, he said.

Gopalaswami, who recently assumed charge as Election Commissioner, said that a meeting of State chief secretaries, Electoral Officers and Directors General of Police (DGPs) would be held in Delhi on Feb 16 and 17.

The commission would then hold discussions with the Union Home Secretary on Feb 19, followed by a meeting with political parties on the next day, he added.

On the dispute between two factions of Nationalist Congress Party over the symbol, Gopalaswami, who is attending a college function, said that the arguments had been completed and the rival factions had been given time upto Friday (Feb 20, 2004) to submit additional documents.

To a question, he said the practice of deploying a mix of Union and State Government employees for election work would be continued for the coming elections also.

On the common complaint of voters finding their names missing in the voters list despite having photo identity cards, he said the Commission was taking initiatives to redress the problem.

On an experimental basis, the panel had taken up printing of the voter's photo and ID card number in the voters list itself. Currently this was being carried out in certain locations in Kerala and Haryana, he said.

However, this would not be enforced for the coming polls since it was a monumental task and would take time for full implementation.

Of the total electorate of 65.8 crore, between 65 to 70 per cent had been issued voter identity cards, he said adding that in Tamil Nadu, cards had been issued to 70 per cent voters.

Dispelling apprehensions about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), he said they were "absolutely tamper-proof" and the commission had made several demonstrations to prove this.

Replying to a question, he said there was adequate stock of EVMs and more could be procured easily if the need arose.