No . 84 /SAD/2018
To
The Chief Election Commissioner of India,
Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road,
New Delhi.
The Chief Electoral Officer,
SCO- 29-30, Sector-17E,
Chandigarh.
Sub: Misuse of Govt. machinery by the ruling Congress party in 32- Shahkot by-election in the State of Punjab.
Dear Sir,
With reference to the above subject it is submitted as under :
1. The ruling Congress Party in the state of Punjab is openly misusing the government machinery to pressurize the voters and supporters of Shiromani Akali Dal.
2. To achieve this the services of different departments especially the Dept. of Rural Development and Panchayat, Co-operation deptt., Power deptt., Food and Civil Supplies deptt. and Police deptt. are being taken by the Congress party as explained below :-
a) A large number of Sarpanches of the Shahkot Assembly Constituency has informed our election office in Shahkot that the local BDPO’s are openly issuing threats to them to either vote for the ruling party candidate Mr. Hardev Singh Laddi Sherowalia or face strict departmental action including registration of false cases by the Vigilance department.
b) The Presidents and Members of different Co-operative societies have complained of similar harassment by the officer of Co-operative department.
c) Even today a team of electricity department raided the house of our Sarpanch Sohan Singh of Village Mulewal Khehra in Shahkot Assembly Constituency after he refused to join Congress party. The raiding party disconnected the power supply of the house and took away the old meter without any reason warning him of dire consequences if he fails to support the Congress party candidate. In addition they also took away the old electricity meters of his two brothers namely S. Manmohan Singh and S. Darbara Singh. The Sarpanch also received threatening calls from anonymous caller after the raiding team left the vigilance.
It may be mentioned here that the State Power Minister Mr. Gurpreet Singh Kangar is himself camping in the same village to supervise the election campaign of Congress party candidate.
e) The police officials who belong to this constituency are being pressurised to compel their families to support ruling party. Even services of police officials who had previously served in this Constituency are being used as Congress Workers to influence the voters.
3. Keeping in view all these factors we want to reiterate that ECI of India should immediately take a serious view of all these violations of Model Code of Conduct. The following orders may be given without any further delay to ensure free and fair election :-
I. Since the ruling party is hell bent on rigging the election an, independent team may be appointed by ECI from Delhi to stop it. Simple deployment of observers will not help.
II. The Para-Military forces may be deployed immediately throughout the Constituency.
III. The ECI may order video graphy of all the polling booths.
IV. The polling parties may be appointed direct by the Commission otherwise the state government would be able to manage the officials of their choice for deployment as polling parties.
V. Directions may be issued to the Chief Secreatry, Punjab to warn all the senior officers of the Govt. not to induldge in such activities which may hamper the conduct of free and fair election.
With regards,
Yours sincerely,
(Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema)
Senior Vice President & Spokesma
