The Hindu : Front Page : Poll officials file complaints against Advani, Modi, Vaghela

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Thursday, Dec 20, 2007
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Poll officials file complaints against Advani, Modi, Vaghela

Manas Dasgupta

‘They announced prospects of their parties within prohibited area’

AHMEDABAD: The Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar Collectors, who are also the district election officers, on Wednesday filed complaints of non-cognisable offences against Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Union Textile Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela for allegedly publicly announcing the prospects of their parties in the Assembly elections within the prohibited area of booths.

The complaints were filed against Mr. Advani at the Shahpur police station, against Mr. Modi at the Sabarmati station here and against Mr. Vaghela at the Pethapur station in Gandhinagar, all under Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act.

State Congress legal cell convener Krishnakant Vakharia had filed a complaint with the State Election Commission against Mr. Advani and Mr. Modi. This, along with the reports of micro-observers appointed by the Election Commission for the polling day, formed the basis of the complaints against the two leaders. The complaint against Mr. Vaghela was filed suo motu on the basis of the micro-observers’ report.

The State Commission forwarded the reports of the micro-observers to the Collectors. Commission sources said the observers reported that Mr. Advani had addressed some 20 journalists within 100 metres of a booth after casting his vote at municipal school number 11 in Khanpur under the Shahpur constituency on Sunday.

Mr. Modi was alleged to have addressed some 1,000 BJP workers and journalists within 200 metres of a booth at Ranip under the Sarkhej constituency. Both of them predicted a massive victory for the BJP about seven hours before the scheduled closure of polling at 5 p.m. Mr. Vaghela allegedly addressed some journalists at Vasaniya Mahadev village near Gandhinagar predicting a Congress win.

A similar suo motu complaint of non-cognisable offence has been filed against senior journalist Prabhu Chawla at the Sabarmati police station for conducting an interview with Mr. Modi on the Aaj Tak channel before the poll process was over. Earlier, another complaint was filed at the station against the ETV-Gujarati for televising a question-answer session with Mr. Modi on the poll prospects. Both complaints were filed on the basis of the reports of the micro-observers.

State government sources, however, said complaints of non-cognisable offences were “routinely filed” during elections and “forgotten” soon after. The police had no authority to issue any arrest warrant but were required to obtain statements from the alleged offenders and submit a report in court within 90 days of the filing of the complaints. If an alleged offender expressed regret and promised not to repeat the mistake, the charges would automatically be dropped.

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