High-octane campaign ends, SEC vows free poll

The high octane campaigning for the April 16 civic polls came to an end on Saturday with the contestants making last ditch efforts to lure voters by conducting rallies, road shows and interactive sessions to ensure their victory.

The administration as well as the State Election Commission vowed to ensure free and fair elections across five Municipal Corporations, 16 Nagar Parishads including 13 Nagar Panchayats.

Assuring free and fair election across Jharkhand, State Election Commissioner NN Pandey said that instructions have been issued to senior officials regarding beefing up the security at polling booths, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and other technical aspects.

Pandey said that apt action will be taken against the defaulters who have violated the Model Code of Conduct norms or found infringing guidelines on polling day. As per State Election Commissioner, as many as 86 cases of Model Code of Conduct violation were registered up till April 14.

“State Election Commission has registered around 18 cases of violation of Model Code of Conduct from Garhwa, 20 cases of violation from Ranchi besides, 8, 12 and 13 violation cases from Koderma, Palamu and Hazaribagh respectively. However, no cases were registered against any contestant for exceeding the monetary limits during campaigning.”

Pandey further said that three rounds of EVMs checking by Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL) engineers have been completed. Besides vulnerability mapping of polling booths, training of polling officers have been successfully accomplished at the 34 Urban Local Bodies (ULB).

Meanwhile, a series of press meet were organized on the last campaigning day by different political parties and independent candidates. Before wrapping up the election campaigning action, the BJP addressed the media persons at the party’s State headquarter. Vice-President of Jharkhand BJP State Unit, Deepak Prakash looked confident ahead of the civic poll. Prakash while addressing the media said that BJP is a development-oriented political party and will again emerge victorious.  

On the occasion of Dr.BR Ambedkar’s 127th birth anniversary, Prakash further added, “BJP is celebrating the birth anniversary of Dr. BR Ambedkar with revelry across the country. It is a pious day for us and we are confident of winning all the 74 seats in the upcoming civic polls.”

Applauding the work done by the incumbent government under the leadership of Raghubar Das, Prakash added that several developmental tasks have been taken up. “We have focused on holistic development; from blocks to districts to the capital, attempts were made to improve the living condition of rural populace,” added Prakash.

Prakash ruled out the threats from the oppositions. He said that the public are aware about who is working for them and who is just playing politics to secure their vote banks, soon the picture will be cleared as it will be ascertained that the voters are just in the favour of ‘development’.   

Besides the ruling party, Indian National Congress (INC) as well conducted a press meet. Addressing the media on Saturday, Rajya Sabha MP Dheeraj Prasad Sahu said, “The selected top candidates of Congress will definitely work in the favour of public. Congress party is confident of winning this civic poll from all parts of the State.”

Taking the continuous tiff between former elected representatives – Asha Lakra and Sanjiv Vijayawargia, Sahu said, “Amid continuous tussle, no developmental activities have been significantly carried out during their tenure. Ranchi is lagging behind on several frontages. Also, there were several loopholes in implementation of different government schemes be it Smart City project, sewage drainage project, housing schemes etc. BJP has just imposed heavy taxation on public.”