A high level team of the Election Commission will visit Rajasthan beginning Friday to assess the arrangements in the poll-bound state. Elections are slated in the state later this year. Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said that Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goyal are set to go on a three-day visit to the state from September 29. They are going to be accompanied with other senior officials and will hold a meeting with representatives of recognised political parties on Friday, Gupta said.
The Election Commission will then meet with the nodal officers of the Rajasthan police, income tax, excise, transport, commercials tax department, railways and airport etc.
On August 30, a presentation was given to the team by the Chief Electoral Officer, State Police Nodal Officer and Central Police Force Nodal Officers on the preparations for the polls. Following this a meeting with district election officers, inspectors general of police, district superintendents of police and election related officials.
On October 1, the team will hold a meeting with the chief secretary and the Director General of Police and later brief the media.
The EC is likely to announce election schedule in the first week of October.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party president J P Nadda held night-long discussions with the party's Rajasthan leadership in Jaipur on a range of issues concerning the upcoming assembly elections in the state. The meeting began at a hotel late on Wednesday evening and continued till 2 am. The held meetings with Union minister and the party's election in-charge for Rajasthan Pralhad Joshi, co-in-charge Nitin Patel, BJP's in-charge for Rajasthan Arun Singh among other leaders. However, the matter of the discussion hasn’t been revealed in full detail.
The discussions were held amid a buzz that two central ministers might be asked to contest the upcoming polls. The speculation follows the BJP's decision to name three Union ministers and four MPs in its second list of candidates for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.