Chief poll officer gets tough on defacement of public property

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 3

VK Singh, Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab, has directed the heads of Local Bodies Department, Public Works Department, Public Relations Department, Rural Development and Panchayats and Public Health Department to ensure that government buildings, walls, pillars of overbridges and outer surfaces of overhead water tanks are not used for political sloganeering. Following these directions, the concerned officers have asked senior officials in all districts of the state to assess the defacement of public property and immediately remove any paintings/posters/ hoardings atop government property that spread political propaganda of any party and submit an action taken report within three days.

The Chief Electoral Officer has also ordered that no government spending is to be done for political propaganda of one political party.

The issue of how all political parties — Shiromani Akali Dal, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party — are using these walls for election propaganda in the name of outdoor advertising and are spending crores of rupees on it was highlighted by The Tribune in its columns on Friday.

The news report had also highlighted how the ruling Akali Dal was partly using the government budget for publicity — on highlighting its achievements — ahead of the Assembly poll.

Giving a reference of The Tribune story, in its orders issued to the heads of the departments, the Chief Electoral Officer has said that this was not just violating the Punjab Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1997, but was also violating the model code of conduct, even though the code of conduct had not come into effect.

The heads of departments have been asked to be personally responsible for removing such defacement and register cases under Section 3 of the Defacement Act.

After EC’s objection, dept cancels transfers 

Chandigarh: After objections raised by the Election Commission, the state Department of Rural Development and Panchayats on Saturday cancelled transfer orders of its 31 officers. 

The department had handed over transfer letters to five district development and panchayat officers (DDPO) and 26 block development and panchayat officers (BDPO) earlier this week. However, the commission had immediately raised objections to the orders. 

The commission said since these officers were working either as returning officers or assistant returning officers in various Assembly segments, they couldn’t be transferred without commission’s approval it would affect pre-election works. tns