PATNA, May 3 -- Ahead of the state assembly polls in Bihar, the state election department started the first level checking (FLC) of electronic voting machines ( EVMs) from Friday in many districts and the exercise would continue in a phase wise manner till June 20, officials said. As per the schedule, the FLC started in Kishanganj, Purnea, Banka, Darbhanga, Nalanda, Khagaria, Gaya, Saran, Sitamarhi from today while in other districts, it would commence on different dates in next few weeks, sources said. The FLC starts at least 120 days before the commencement of the general election to the state assembly or as instructed by the Election Commission of India( ECI). In that perspective, the assembly poll in the state is likely to start in October in a phase wise manner. In 2020, the state assembly polls were held in three phases on October 28, November 3rd and November 7 while the counting was done on November 10. In the guidelines issued by the office of Chief Electoral officer, Bihar to all district election officers( DEOs) cum DMs of 38 districts, the FLC checking exercise has to be done under the supervision of the DEO of each district and the schedule of the FLC has to be communicated to all national and state recognised political parties, whose representatives should be encouraged to be present on the first day of the FLC process. " All standard operating procedures(SOPs) for checking of the EVMs in the FLC including mock polls will be done and representatives of political parties would be allowed to pick machines randomly for the purpose of mock -poll and also do the mock-poll, if they want. The FLC would be done by ensuring full security at the warehouses and the entire process would be recorded," one election officer said. Sources said that the requirement of EVMs( ballot units and control units) and VVPATs( Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) should be 125 % to 135 % respectively of the number of polling stations or as provisioned by the ECI based on geographical conditions and past elections. In the forthcoming assembly polls, there are chances the number of polling stations in the state would be around 1 lakh as the ECI has capped the number of voters per polling station to 1,000 voters, officials said. Meanwhile, the ECI in its bid to sanitise the electoral rolls and make it more accurate, would now obtain death registration data electronically from the Registrar General of India in line with rule 9 of the registration of electors rules, 1960 and section 3(5) (b) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969( as amended in 2023). A press statement said this will ensure that the electoral registration officers ( EROs) receive timely information of registered deaths , which would enable booth level officers ( BLOs) to re-verify the information through field visits, without waiting for a formal request under Form-7. The Form-7 is the application used for seeking deletion of names of electors by other persons in case of death of the elector and is also used for objecting inclusion of name of other person....