Sunday’s elections were undemocratic, says CPI (Marxist)

The state leadership of the CPI (M) has announced the launch of a campaign to sensitise the masses about the need of respecting democracy during polls aimed to elect bodies entrusted with development at the grassroots level.

Accusing leaders of various political parties of trying to grab power by hook or by crook, the party categorically rejected the zila parishad and block samiti results slated to be announced on Wednesday.

CPI (M) members led by State Secretary Sukhwinder Singh Sekhon said that apart from presenting its case to the Election Commission of India and the State Election Commission, the party would launch a coordinated movement to spread awareness among Punjabis in general and villagers in particular about the importance of Panchayati Raj Institutions in rural development and about democracy that had allegedly been harmed during elections.

“The Punjab Government has not only toed the earlier regimes but has crossed all limits by employing the ‘sam daam dand bhed’ formula at the grassroots level,” Sekhon said. He argued that the poor turnout in polling had also proven beyond doubt that those respecting democracy had stayed away from the process after noticing unethical practices, including allurement and coercion during voting.