To take stock of the poll preparedness in the State ahead of ensuing Punjab Assembly elections, the Election Commission of India’s entire team, led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra, reached Chandigarh on Wednesday.
Starting the two-day Punjab visit, the full commission held a series of meetings with the leaders of all prominent political parties, State poll panel officials, State Police Nodal Officer, and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF).
Along with CEC Chandra, the commission’s team include two Election Commissioners — Rajiv Kumar and Anup Chandra Pandey, three Deputy Election Commissioners — Chandra Bhushan Kumar, Nitesh Vyas, and T Sreekanth, and the Director-General Sheyphali B Sharan.
On the first day, the ECI team held one-on-one meeting with the representatives of the national and state level recognised political parties, including All India Trinamool Congress Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Communist Party of India (CPI) , Communist Party of India (Marxist), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
The commission heard the concerns of the representatives of political parties and assured that issues raised by them would be deliberated and examined.
Later, the commission held a meeting with Punjab Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Dr S Karuna Raju, State Police Nodal Officer, and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to review the preparations for the forthcoming Assembly Elections.
The Commission also held meetings with representatives of various enforcement agencies to know about security arrangements to ensure smooth conduct of elections.
Earlier, Dr Raju received the full commission at the Mohali Airport and warm reception was accorded at the meeting venue in Chandigarh.
APPOINT REGULAR DGP, REVIEW SSPs, DSPs’ POSTINGS
SAD on Wednesday urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to appoint a regular Director General of Police (DGP), besides requesting to review all the postings and transfers of SSPs and DSPs and other senior officers “done with the ulterior motive of influencing the outcome of the general election” to the State Assembly.
SAD’s two-member delegation of Maheshinder Singh Grewal and Daljit Singh Cheema, in a representation to the CEC, urged the EC to appoint a regular DGP on merit in the State to boost the people’s confidence deploying central forces at polling booths.
It also called for videography at all polling booths, besides urging the EC to issue directions to the State government to stop misleading and bogus advertisements at the cost of tax-payers’ money.
The SAD’s representative said that the manner in which transfers were being done on a daily basis on monetary concerns as per media reports had put a big question mark on the conduct of the forthcoming assembly elections in a free and fair manner.
“It is strange that in the last three months, the Government could not appoint a regular DGP and has purposely appointed an acting DGP to keep senior officers on tenterhooks and coerce them into implementing its political agenda of vendetta against the SAD and its top leadership,” it added.
SAD also annexed a copy of a news report along with its representation giving details of how a Cabinet Minister Rana Gurjit Singh leveled charges of bribery against Home Minister Sukhjinder Randhawa by stating that the latter was collecting between Rs two to Rs five crore from police officers for posting as SSPs. This report is yet to be contradicted by the government.