New Delhi, Jan 26: The Election Commission Friday awarded Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal for best electoral practices and election management for the year 2012.
The awards were received by Chief Electoral Officers Anita Karwal (Gujarat), Umesh Sinha (Uttar Pradesh) and Sunil Gupta (West Bengal). Four District Electoral Officers and Superintendents of Police were also given national awards for best electoral practices.
The awards were presented by Vice President Hamid Ansari on the National Voters Day at a function here.
The National Voters' Day was marked by organising functions at 6.5 lakh locations across the country covering nearly 8.5 lakh polling stations involving around 46,000 educational institutions.
The Vice President also handed over Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) to ten young first-time voters whose names were added during the summary revision on January 1 this year. A total of 2.32 crore voters were added during the summary revision, of which 93 lakh are first-time youth voters in 18-19 age group.
Among individual awards, the first award was jointly presented to Kamini Chauhan Ratan, DEO Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh and Surendra Singh, DEO Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh.
The second award was jointly presented to Avantika Aulakh, DEO Bharuch, Gujarat and Pravin Bakshi, DEO West Garo Hills, Meghalaya.
The third award was jointly presented to Jayshri Kiyawat, DEO Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh and Ram Krishna Bhardwaj, SP Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh.
A special award was also presented to Ajit K Shrivastava, additional commissioner of Income Tax, Ranchi, Jharkhand.
National Media Award for the Campaign on Voters' Education and Awareness was presented to Zee News and special media award for the Campaign on Voters' Education and Awareness to Amar Ujala.
