District election officer BVRC Purushottam appealed to all the political parties and candidates contesting the civic body polls to follow the Model Code of Conduct strictly in a meeting held at Collectorate on Saturday.
The DEO said candidates should avoid hurting sentiment of any religion, community or social group. The candidates should not take help of caste, communal and religious sentiments in a direct or indirect manner in seeking the votes. Religious places should not be used for poll campaigning.
There should not be effort to threaten the voters for their favour. Any sort of campaigning in 100 metre periphery of the polling booth is strictly banned. The voting slip given to the voters should on a plain paper carrying name, father’s name of the voter, name of the polling centre, and roll number. The slip should not carry anything else other than these details.
He said that during campaigning personal issues related to any candidate should not be raised. Government’s guest houses, Dak Bungalows and official residences should not be used for campaigning of the polls. He said that candidates and parties should ensure that their supporters didn’t use buildings, house of any other person for hanging banners and flags.
He said that the candidates would be able to use loudspeakers from 9 am to 9 pm. Chief development officer Sushil Kumar said that maximum poll expense limit for the candidate of mayoral polls has been fixed Rs8 lakh followed by Rs1 lakh each for the post of councillor. The district election office also fixed maximum limit of poll expense for the candidates in fray for the post of municipal council president and town area chairman as well as councillors there. The candidates would have to submit detail of expense before the officer within a month.