Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar calls for remote voting for NRIs and migrant workers. Calls for non-disclosure of votes received by each candidate at any given polling station. Also underlined the need for \”financial transparency\” in managing poll expenses and campaign promises. Also spoke about Artificial Intelligence, or AI, which he declared could \”revolutionise (the) conduct of elections\” In his farewell speech Mr Kumar also hit back at his critics, declaring \”such tactics are better avoided in the interest of a mature democracy\” He seemed to refer specifically to more recent allegations against the EC – from the Haryana and Maharashtra election in October last year and the Delhi election this month. He slammed all \”motivated and uncorroborated attacks on democratic institutions\” and declared that these had not deterred the crores of India’s voters. He spoke about AI and the ERONET, a web-based platform for poll officials that supports 14 languages to manage the voter database. He also spoke about the release of voting data from booths, which is currently accessed by Form 17C, accessed by the EC. He blamed such information for post-election violence and victimisation and exclusion of the supporters of opposition parties from developmental activities.
