Spare commoners, Cong urges EC

Hyderabad: Questioning the way money from the common public is being seized by the authorities in view of the Mode Code of Conduct (MCC), the Congress held that effective implementation of the election code should take into consideration the hardships faced by the public, traders and small-time businessmen who are forced to undergo hardships.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) senior vice president and chairman Election Commission Coordination Committee, G Niranjan, who wrote to Rajiv Kumar Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of the Election Commission of India said that despite all the assurances to streamline this mechanism of cash seizures, the common public is put to hardship by regular checking and seizure of money. Ironically even gold, which remains unconnected to the electioneering was also reportedly being seized causing mental agony to the public.

“Despite the Election Commission (EC) which held a series of meetings with the officials of all departments in Telangana from October 3 to 5, this mechanism is yet to be streamlined. The authorities have started harassing the common public from the very day of the announcement of the schedule this month. The gap between the announcement of the schedule and polling day is about 51 days and the life of common citizens has become miserable, due to the unwanted vehicle checking. In most cases seizure of cash and gold is in no way connected to influence the voters,” he later said while speaking to the media at Gandhi Bhavan.

While acknowledging that in view of the MCC, there were certain rules for carrying money, Niranjan argued that authorities also have to take into consideration the general practice of the uninformed in society. Once the cash is seized, the genuine person has to wait for more than 50 days to get his money back which means he will only get the money after elections are over.

“We request the EC to direct the officials concerned first to ascertain whether that cash is intended for elections or not before seizing it. I urged authorities to put an end to the woes of the common man,” he added.