Moga Additional Deputy Commissioner’s complaint to the Punjab State Election Commissioner regarding three Congress MLAs threatening him has created a storm in the state political circles ahead September 19 elections to Panchayati Raj Institutions.

All along alleging “misuse of office machinery” by the Congress, both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have trained their guns on the ruling party. They have demanded registration of cases against three Congress legislators for threatening Moga ADC Jagwinder Singh Grewal and for obstructing a government official from performing his legitimate official duties.

Grewal has alleged that district’s three Congress MLAs — Dr Harjot Kamal of Moga, Darshan Singh Brar of Baghapurana, and Kaka Sukhjit Singh Lohgarh of Dharamkot — had threatened him for “not rejecting the nomination papers of some candidates of the opposition parties”.

He had also alleged that during the scrutiny of the nomination papers, the MLAs had stormed into his office along with hundreds of their supporters, due to which he had to run away from there to save his life.

Grewal also alleged that senior Youth Congress leader Kamaljit Singh Brar also stopped his vehicle on the way to office and threatened him.

The ADC had submitted a formal complaint with the poll panel, which had also enhanced his security.

Taking serious note, SAD spokesman and former minister Daljit Singh Cheema said that the developments amply vindicated SAD’s accusation of large scale rejection of its nominees across the state.

“What is revealed is just tip of iceberg. This has happened all over the state and the Congress MLAs and other leaders had persuaded, cajoled and threatened the officials to obey their dictates to reject the potential winning candidates in their areas. In fact, majority of officials submitted to dictates while a few did resist and at least one Grewal dared to expose the nefarious designs of the Congress,” said Cheema.

He said that the party had already provided details of 249 aspirants whose nomination were wrongly rejected by the returning officers without any rhyme or reason at behest of Congressmen bossing around who have reduced the poll process to a mere mockery. 

Cheema said that not only the poll process has been vitiated but the incident is reflective of failure of the law and order machinery. “If the returning officers are vulnerable to the threats from ruling party’s goons, how can one expect free and fair elections in the state,” he asked.

Urging the SEC to probe the incident immediately and take prompt actions against defaulting legislators and till then order to extern them from the state till completion of poll process. This would prove deterrent and re-establish the credibility of the Commission which has been seriously eroded following arbitrary large scale nominations.

Meanwhile, AAP’s state co-president Dr Balbir Singh and the Leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Harpal Singh Cheema have also demanded registration of case against Congress legislators and the leaders who threaten the ADC.

Besides, AAP also demanded videography of the entire polling process across the state besides deployment of central security forces at all sensitive polling booths.

They also condemned the threatening and intimidating of ADC for forcefully cancelling the nominations of AAP and independent candidates.