NEW DELHI: With interesting electoral battles coming up in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam over the next one year, the Election Commission has stepped up preparedness of its grassroots functionaries by conducting a two-day training programme for district election officers (DEOs) and electoral registration officers (EROs) from West Bengal as well as an orientation workshop media officers in effective communication strategy.
The two-day national training programme for two district election officers (DEOs), 12 electoral registration officers (EROs) and 217 booth level officers (BLOs) from West Bengal — being conducted at the International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM) here — forms part of the EC’s broader training plan for capacity augmentation of its grassroots-level election functionaries.
EC is also focusing on developing an effective communication strategy in the evolving media landscape, by training media officers from across the country to proactively disseminate information, counter misinformation and fake narratives in a timely manner and promote voter awareness including through social media platforms. Media officers from 28 states and 8 UTs — comprising media nodal officers, social media nodal officers and district public relations officers — participated in the one-day orientation programme that concluded on Wednesday at IIIDEM here.
Addressing the media officers, chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar acknowledged the role of media as a key stakeholder in the electoral process and emphasised the importance of factual, timely and transparent communication in upholding the trust of voters in the electoral processes in a digitally mediated information world.
Kumar asked the media officers to be proactive in communicating accurate information and rise to the challenge of ensuring that voters are correctly informed and empowered to discern facts from narratives without factual basis.