Hooda’s advt. spree make ECI declare elections early

Chandigarh: September 1, 2009: A delegation led by the BJP National General Secretary Mr. Vijay Goel called on the Chief Election Commissioner Shri Navin Chawla to-day . Haryana State BJP President Mr. Krishnapal Gurjjar alongwith his office-bearers also joined the delegation.
Vijay Goel revealed that during meeting with the Chief Election Commissioner a startling fact came to fore. The election commission officials said that elections were declared early due to Hooda government’s spree on putting public money to use for political purposes and gaining mileage out of it. The ECI could have waited for some more time, but decided to go ahead with declaration early in a bid to put full stop on the self-promotion spree of present state government. Vijay Goel emphasized that this has proven Hooda government bad governance, misutilization of hard earned public money and the way innocent electorates are being befooled.
Mr.Goel complained to the Chief Election Commissioner that Haryana assembly was dissolved on August 21 rendering next elections inevitable. Despite this, Haryana’s Chief Minister spent crores of rupees from public fund wrongly for self publicity, electoral gains and political mileage. The public money was abusively spent not only on news-paper ads. but also on channels, F.M. Radio and Video Van etc to achieve political gain.
Mr. Goel along with Shri Gujjar demanded that the Chief Minister Mr. Hooda should be made to account for entire public money in crores he had spent on advertisements after the dissolution of the assembly and the Election Commission should take action against him if he had intended to draw political and electoral gains out of it.
On one hand, Haryana is reeling under drought and the state government is asking for grants from the Central government, on the other hand crores of rupees were wasted on self-propaganda.
Mr. Goel added that government hoardings are still there in place in entire Haryana state to achieve political and electoral gains but the hoardings about religious and social events are immediately being taken off.
Mr. Goel observed that it is against Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct should have come into effect on the day the assembly was dissolved. Moreover, the permission for this expenses should be sought from the Governor or the State Election Commission. This has made us apprehensive that elections in Haryana would not be free and fair. The role of the state government appears to be dubious.
• If the assembly had has to be dissolved, the elections could have been held with Lok Sabha elections to save crores of rupees. The Election Commission should see that no govt. should be dissolved within one year of Lok Sabha elections to save public money from being wasted.
• All District authorities of Haryana should be directed to remove all government hoardings and advertisements from public places.
• It should also be ensured that no government guest house, govt. vehicle etc is misused.
• The leaders and other prominent personalities visiting Haryana should be extended security as per norms in consultation with the Election Commission.
• The members of the delegation included S/s Krishnapal Gurjar, Kishan Singh Sangwan, Smt Sudha Yadav, Kailash Sharma, Omprakash Dhankhad and Capt. Abhimanyu.