In their election campaign, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and his partymen highlight that during his childhood, Modi used to sell tea in the trains and helped his father who owned a tea stall at a railway station in Gujarat.
The Assistant Returning Officers (ARO) in Dehradun district will be vigilant of tea vendors around polling booths to check whether they are genuinely selling tea or distributing it for free for political publicity.An FIR will be lodged against anyone who provides any item free of cost to woo the voters in favour of a candidate on polling day, said Dehradun election officer and Tehri lok Sabha seat returning officer Dr BVRC Purushottam on Thursday.
The Assistant Returning Officers have been directed to ensure that essential amenities like drinking water, electricity and sanitation are provided for in the polling booths by May 3 so that polling officers or presiding officers do not face any inconvenience after arriving there on May 4. Dehradun Chief Development Officer and election expenditure management committee nodal officer AK Pandey said that as per Election Commission of India’s guidelines, no political activities will be allowed within 200 metres of polling booths. During training programme on election, the polling officers, presiding officers, sector magistrates, zonal magistrates and other election officers have been educated about model code of conduct for elections in detail.
It has been observed in the past that generally the supporters of various political parties and independent candidates are using several methods to woo the voters in favour of their candidate on polling day. Considering this, the election officers have been directed to check the tea stalls or other shops around polling booths to ascertain whether they are genuinely selling tea or items and not distributing items for free for political gains. Moreover, some persons at election office were witnessed complaining about BlOs not providing them voter’s slip so far with the polling date approaching closer.