The Hindu : Front Page : Enforce code strictly, EC urged

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Saturday, Apr 05, 2008
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Enforce code strictly, EC urged

Special Correspondent

Congress wants Commission to allow ongoing development work

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

FOLLOWING THE RULE BOOK: Chief Election Commissioner, N. Gopalaswamy, flanked by Election Commissioners S.Y.Quraishi and Navin Chawla, arriving for a meeting at Vidhana Soudha on Friday.

BANGALORE: Political parties in the State have told the Election Commission to strictly enforce the model code of conduct during the run up to the three-phase Legislative Assembly elections to be held on May 10, 16 and 22.

The Congress has appealed to the commission to allow the Government to execute ongoing development projects in the State till an elected government was in place.

Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami, Election Commissioners S.Y. Quraishi and Navin Chawla held a two-hour meeting with leaders of the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Janata Dal (S) (JD-S), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and heard their views .

Later, the commission held a meeting with Deputy Commissioners and top officials of various departments. Chief Electoral Officer M. N. Vidyashankar was present.

Congress leader and former Minister R.V. Deshpande told presspersons after the meeting that the party had appealed to the commission to allow the Government to execute ongoing development projects in villages, towns and cities till the completion of election process. On erection of banners and buntings in public places, he said the party had requested the commission to provide guidelines to be followed during the campaign and appealed to it to take all steps to ensure free and fair elections. The BJP delegation, led by MLC Ganesh Karnik and JD (S) delegation led by party’s State Working President C. Narayaswamy, met the commission too. Mr. Karnik said the BJP urged the commission to supply error-free electronic voting machines.

Mr. Narayanaswamy said the Janata Dal (S) since a large number of voters had not been provided identity cards, the Janata Dal (S) leader requested Mr. Gopalaswami to publish a list of documents one of which the voters had to carry on the polling day.

CPI(M) State Secretary V.J.K. Nair said he briefed the commission on errors in the revised electoral rolls and issue of identity cards. The CPI State Council Executive member M.C. Venkataramu urged the Election Commissioners to declare the polling day as paid holiday to enable public and private undertaking employees to cast their votes.

The commission members would discuss with Chief Secretary Sudhakar Rao and Director-General and Inspector-General of Police K.R. Srinivasan about arrangements to be made for the Assembly elections, on Saturday, according to the official sources.

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