An all-party meeting called by the Election Commission will begin shortly.

The parties that are likely to attend are: the Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Samajwadi Party, CPI-M, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), DMK, CPI, YSR Congress, Kerala Congress Mani (KCM) and AIUDF.


The EC has sent out invitations to seven national and 51 regional parties.


The Election Commission has called an all-party meeting to discuss several key questions that will help the Commission prepare the poll roadmap. The agenda of the does not lay down the one-nation-one-poll demand of the Cenre, but political parties are expected to raise the point.


On the agenda are: the place of electoral rolls, placing a ceiling on political parties expenditure, procedural and timely submission of annual audited reports by parties, demand for paper ballots, etc.

The opposition parties have recently upped their demand to use paper ballots and do away with EVM machines, however, the Commission is likely to discuss how usage of paper trail machines, along with EVMs, can be made into a norm.


Image: CEC OP Rawat with Election Commissioners.