Bittu’s posters on trees: Green warriors urge EC to act

Ludhiana: A day after Ravneet Singh Bittu was formally declared Congress’s candidate from Ludhiana for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Bittu’s poll campaign ran into a controversy on Wednesday with city-based environment activists lodging a complaint with the Election Commission about his posters nailed on trees all over the city.
Raising concern over the harm caused to trees, RBS Roots, a city-based NGO, in its complaint to chief electoral officer Punjab, said posters with a list of achievements of Congress MP Ravneet Bittu can be seen hammered to tree trunks in Dugri area.

The NGO has sought the EC’s intervention, seeking directions to all the candidates to spare trees and green areas of the city and not to install any hoarding or advertisement boards that can cause any harm to the green vegetation.

NGO coordinator Amandeep Bains in his complaint said bringing any harm to greenery for political purpose should be condemned.

He claimed that advertisement banners and posters can be seen nailed on almost all trees on Dugri Road and in markets of Urban Estate phase-I. He suspected other areas must be affected as well. He claimed that it is defacement as well as an irreversible damage to the trees that cannot be repaired.

Seeking action in this regard, he urged the commission to issue separate warning to all candidates against use of trees for their election campaign.

Claiming that the members have been fighting for the cause of greenery for the last five years, Bains claimed in case the EC fails to act, the members would move the National Green Tribunal in this case.

Local residents also reacted against putting up hoardings or banners on trees. Gurpal Grewal, a businessman and a resident of Model Town, while posting a video on his FB account, said, “On every pillars under the elevated road, hoardings of Bittu have been installed by Congress leaders. If the MP really worked hard in the past 5 years, then there was no need to put up these hoardings and banners in every corner.”

Grewal wanted the authorities to take action and stop candidates of all parties from defacing the city.

Earlier too, when the district Congress committee had installed hoardings on the unipoles at designated advertisement sites, the SAD-BJP leaders had objected to it and had taken up the issue with deputy commissioner Pardeep Agrawal.

DC-cum-district electoral officer Pardeep Agrawal said, “I will look into the matter and action will be taken against all unauthorized hoardings or posters in the city.”