No party should use money and muscle power to derail the process of free and fair polls during the coming General Elections,” said representatives of political parties while attending a State-level conference on electoral and political reforms organised by the State chapter of the National Election Watch and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) here on Friday.
Participating in the discussions on “Building environment for free and fair elections 2014”, senior Congress leader Narasingha Mishra said the ruling party should not use administrative power during election to gain electoral benefit.
Most of the political leaders advocate not to cross the expenditure limit set by the Election Commission of India (ECI), but it is violated by political leaders several times, he added.
Mishra also said the voters need to be sensitised about free and fair polls before every election.
“The voters should not be biased by political leaders on consideration of money and other gifts. They should reject the candidate who uses money and muscle power to get vote,” said he.
Aam Aadmi Party State executive member Dhanada Kanta Mishra said the country should come up with political reforms so that family raj and criminalisation in politics can be curbed.
leaders like Narendra Swain from the BJD, Ashok Sahu from the BJP, Kharvela Swain of the Utkal Bharat, Dibakar Nayak of the CPI, Santosh Das from the CPI(M) and delegates of other parties attended the conference.
Among others, former DGP AB Tripathy, former Chief Secretary Sahadev Sahoo, National Election Watch (NEW) head Anil Verma and NEW Odisha State coordinator Ranjan Mohanty participated in the discussions.