Page 126 - Leap of Faith inside pages with cover (1)

Leap of Faith Journey of Indian Elections

phases) in December, 2017 during Achal Kumar Joti's
brief tenure. On January 23, O.P. Rawat took over as the
nd
22 Chief Election Commissioner.
th
On the eve of the 8 National Voters Day (January 25,
2018), the Election Commission hosted the one-day
international conference on theme of “Inclusion of
Persons with Disabilities in the Election Process”. The
National Election Quiz, 2018- meant to heighten
awareness about India's electoral process- attracted a
record participation of 13,62,982 students from 38,160
schools. Election Commission clarified that it endorsed
the Central Information Commission's directive dated
June 3, 2013 that national political parties should be
treated as Public Authorities for the purpose of RTI Act,
2005. Election Commission launched its online RTI portal
CEC Dr. Nasim Zaidi addressing a conference at the ECI Headquarters http://rti.eci.nic.in in June, 2018.

Electoral Management Bodies (EMB) the conference “Accessible Elections” was adopted by the Election
Commission as theme for the year 2018. A two-day
resulted in “New Delhi Declaration on Voter Education”.
The participants resolved to establish the Global national consultation on the same was hosted in July,
2018. The Chief Election Commissioner solicited
Knowledge Network on Voter Education- VoICE.NET.
Dr. Nasim Zaidi favoured comprehensive review of the
Representation of the People Acts, 1950 and 1951. In
December, 2016, Election Commission published a
document titled Proposed Electoral Reforms in which its
recommendations for electoral reforms pending with the
government were presented in a systematised manner.
st
On July 6, 2017 Achal Kumar Joti took over as the 21
Chief Election Commissioner of India. While assuming
office he emphasised inter alia on Election Commission's
mission of “No Voter to be Left Behind” and active
promotion of e-governance for Parliamentary and state
assembly elections.

The elections to the legislative assemblies of Himachal CEC A. K. Joti announcing Assembly Elections to Meghalaya, Nagaland
Pradesh were held in November, and Gujarat (in two and Tripura in January 2018

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