JALANDHAR: The Akali Dal (Badal) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) recently charged the ruling Congress party with misusing official machinery: in electioneering for the May 19 by-election from Jalandhar parliamentary constituency.
Ina statement here, Akali president Parkash Singh Badal urged the Chief Election Commissioner to intervene immediately and effectively to stop “rampant electoral malpractices and gross misuse of official machinery by the Congress.”
In a separate statement, three BSP leaders, including party state president Mohan Singh Phalianwala, claimed that the Congress was getting increasingly: jittery about the winning prospects of the BSP and apprehended that it might go berserk and reason to rigging, impersonation and intimidation through its official machinery.” The BSP statement said “Congress can even go to the extent of getting the by-election postponed in the free of its impending defeat.”
Badal, on the other hand, pointed out that its entire state council of ministers had descended upon Jalandhar to browbeat the electorate. He said administrative headquarters of the state govemment has shifted from Chandigarh to Jalandhar and government officials were openly working for the success of the Congress candidate.
Badal alleged that officials of public relations department had been working for the ruling party’s poll campaign and its local office functioned as the election office of the Congress, “The Congress party is OUL to repeat its fraud of municipal and Panchayat elections,” the statement added.
Tulsi Dass Jetwani, president Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal, has announced to support the Congress (I) candidate.
Ina Statement released here recently, he urged the businessmen all over the state to vote and support the Congress (I) candidate.
He said that it is an “acid test” for the businessmen who now are able to live in peace and run their establishments without any fear with the efforts of Beant Singh to vote ‘Congress (I) candidate in their own interest. He said that though Beopar Mandal is a nonpolitical organization. Yet it is our duty to support those who had’ given them new life in Punjab.
The senior Akali Dal Badal leader and SGPC president, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, accused the Chief Election Commissioner T.N.Seshan, of inaction on complains of his party against Congress (l) of misusing of official machinery using money power and indulging in other corrupt practices in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha by-elections.
Talking to newsmen, Tohra said that the party: president, Parkash Singh Badal, had been sending complaints by telegram to the Election Commissioner but he had not even bothered to get these complaints verified through his observers “who are never available.”
Tohra claimed in this respect that about 1,000 officials cars were requisitioned for electioneering campaign of Congress (I) nominee, Umrao Singh, and were being nun with fake number plates besides the government employees having entrusted duty for pulling banners, erecting stages and making arrangements for election meetings, “There is different yard stick of election commissioner in respect of Jalandhar Lok Sabha and Kalka Vidhan Sabha by-elections, “he remarked.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 21, 1993
