Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav on Friday submitted a memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi, raising various concerns regarding the management of the forthcoming assembly polls.
In his memorandum addressed to the CEO, Yadav wrote, “As the Election Commission of India announced the schedule for Assembly elections in Delhi, I would like to bring to your kind notice the various concerns on behalf of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee regarding the election management in Delhi.”
He asserted that one of the important issues, which arises on the voting day is about the non issuance of clear-cut guidelines/directions to the local police regarding the number of tables and putting up of party flags, symbols and other material used by the workers of different political parties outside the polling stations.
Yadav said it had been experienced that the Congress workers are mostly “harassed” by the police in disguise of Model Code of Conduct (MCC), which is against the electoral practices and healthy democratic process.
The Delhi Congress chief also claimed that in the last elections that due to heavy turnout in many constituencies, long queues for casting votes due to poor management and interruption in voting for hours in casting votes were witnessed, which resulted into the harassment not only for voters but also to the elections machinery including political party workers till late night.
Yadav urged that no deletion or addition in the voters list should be carried out without proper verification.
He urged the CEO to take into account the concerns raised by the party and issue directions to the police to maintain the discipline by acting in an unbiased manner and to follow directions issued by the poll panel so that unnecessary harassment of party workers may be avoided.
“The clear cut directions to the election machinery should also be issued to smoothly manage the voting without unnecessary delays in the Assembly constituencies having highest voter’s turnout so that long queues and late night voting may be managed,” Yadav said.
Elections to the 70-member Delhi Assembly are scheduled to be held in a single phase on February 5. The counting of votes will take place on February 8.