VCI elections 2020 series Part 1: Voting

Pashu Sandesh, 08 July 2020

Animal Husbandry Department, GOI is gearing up for the VCI elections 2020 to elect the 11 members through Electronic Voting for the first time in the VCI elections history. To conduct the elections fairly and smoothly recently an advisory has been issued by the Animal Husbandry Department for the updation of the Mobile numbers of the registered Veterinary Council members. This updation is to be furnished by the members in a prescribed format which is available at the DAHD website by 15th July 2020. 

In November 2019 Department of Animal Husbandry had issued a gazette notification detailing the rules for conducting the VCI elections as well instructions for the returning officer. Here are few details of the Gazette notification for the knowledge improvement of our readers who are observably more excited in the run-up to the VCI elections through E-Voting. 

(1) If the number of duly nominated candidates for election does not exceed the number of members to be elected, the Returning Officer shall forthwith declare such candidates duly elected.

(2) If the number of such candidates exceeds the number of members to be elected, the Returning Officer shall fix a period of not exceeding seven days for the election of members through online voting.

(3) For online voting, the eligible voter has to follow the following procedure, namely:-

(i) he may log in with his registered number in the Indian veterinary practitioner's register ;

(ii) after login, he shall receive a one-time password (OTP) on his mobile number registered with the State veterinary council or the Veterinary council of India ;

(iii) on entering such one time password, the voter shall be able to see a list of contesting candidates and then he may vote by ticking ( ) as many candidates as there are seats to be filled by the election;

(iv) after voting, the voter shall get an acknowledgement that he has completed the voting process successfully;

(v) After voting, the voter shall be automatically logged out and re-voting is not possible.

In our next article in the VCI elections 2020 series, we would present the detailed method of e-voting