ECI Holds EVM and VVPAT First-Level Check Workshop for 21 Eastern UP Districts in Varanasi

The Election Commission of India convened a first-level check workshop for electronic voting machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail units at the Circuit House auditorium in Varanasi on Friday, 11 September 2026, drawing district election machinery from 21 eastern Uttar Pradesh districts into one room before the state’s next assembly cycle.

Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Manish Garg chaired the session. Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa and Additional CEO Akhand Pratap Singh sat with senior Commission and department officials. District election officers, deputy DEOs, FLC supervisors, master trainers and Bharat Electronics Limited engineers filled the working side of the hall.

Rinwa, speaking on record, framed the workshop as the first concrete step in preparing EVMs for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. DEOs from six eastern UP divisions had been called to Varanasi. BEL engineers would oversee the machines. Recognised political parties’ participation would be ensured. Each DEO, he said, must monitor FLC daily through the FLC supervisor and visit the site every day. Officers from other states would be present when FLC is conducted. Commission instructions, he added, would be followed to the letter.

The 21 districts named for the eastern belt were Varanasi, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Bhadohi, Prayagraj, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Kaushambi, Azamgarh, Ballia, Mau, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Maharajganj, Gonda, Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti and Siddharthnagar. That list covers the divisions whose polling hardware will move through the same first-level check discipline.

Sufficient EVMs and VVPATs were available on site for the day’s work. BEL engineers ran practical demonstrations. Participants then moved into hands-on practice, followed by evaluation and doubt-clearing. Presentations covered technical and administrative security, the FLC process itself, and the distinct roles of officials and master trainers.

First-level check is the Commission’s gatekeeping stage before machines enter the poll calendar. It is not a campaign event and it is not a result. It is the point at which hardware, seals, paper trails and supervisory routines are tested under a published protocol. Naming BEL on the floor, naming the DEO’s daily visit duty, and naming party participation are how the Commission keeps that gate visible to the districts that must run it.

The eastern-belt map matters because FLC is district work done under a common template. A DEO in Ballia or Siddharthnagar leaves Varanasi with the same security brief, the same master-trainer role sheet, and the same daily-visit expectation as a DEO in Varanasi itself. That is why the Commission packed 21 districts into one auditorium rather than scattering half-day briefings across six headquarters.

Hands-on practice after a BEL demo is the difference between a slide deck and a working officer who can spot a seal fault or a VVPAT mismatch on the warehouse floor. Evaluation and doubt-clearing close that loop before officers return to their districts. The workshop’s close — FLC with protocol, transparency and caution — restated the Commission’s standing line without inventing a poll date or a machine allotment schedule.

No vote has been cast. No machine has been allotted to a booth. What Friday locked is the training frame for 21 districts and the chain of responsibility Rinwa placed on DEOs and FLC supervisors. For Varanasi, hosting the eastern-belt session at Circuit House puts the city’s election office at the centre of the preparatory map rather than at its edge.

The next verified stamps on this file will be FLC calendars and site visits in the named districts — not rhetoric about who wins next.