Assuming charge as the new chief election commissioner, S Y Quraishi today said the poll panel would accord priority to restricting the role of money power in elections which has become a major challenge.

Quraishi, the 17th CEC, said the commission had held a series of discussions among expenditure observers to find out the areas it could focus on to strengthen checks and controls to prevent misuse of money power.

"We will come out with detailed guidelines. They are being fine tuned. By the end of August, they would have been in place. We hope we will be able to tighten our control on the use of money power," Quraishi, a 1971 batch IAS officer, told reporters after taking over.

Enhancing the participation of voters in polls would also receive the commission's due priority, said 63-year-old Quraishi, who would be conducting Assembly polls in Bihar, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Assam.

To a question on use of EVMs in the backdrop of the experience in Andhra Pradesh bypolls where manual voting took place in five constituencies, he said the commission was constantly working towards making EVMs absolutely fool-proof.

"There seems to be no reason," he said when asked whether the commission would give a second thought on use of EVMs.

Quraishi succeeds Navin Chawla who demitted office yesterday.