BJP meets EC, seeks Central forces for Assembly polls

Chandigarh, Jan 8 (UNI) Fearing massive rigging and bungling, Punjab BJP today urged the Election Commission to deploy Central forces in the state ahead of the Assembly polls on February 13.

A delegation of senior Punjab BJP leaders, in a meeting with the Election Commission of India team here to assess the poll preparations, conveyed its reservations about the ''biased and partisan'' Punjab Police and state bureaucracy and stressed that it was ''an unfit force and administrative set-up to man elections duty''.

Senior BJP leaders including Balramji Das Tandon, Madan Mohan Mittal, Narrotam Dev Ratti and party youth wing leader Vineet Joshi, who sought to apprise the EC of the ''ground situation'', handed over a memorandum of demands including deployment of Central forces and appointments of officers from outside Punjab as Central Observers for the Election Commission.

Talking to reporters after the meeting with the EC team, Mr Tandon said,''We apprehend unprecedented violence and rigging on account of higher stakes and higher aggressiveness on part of Congress regime backed by a brash CM at helm of affairs''.

''To back our demand, we have handed over a VCD to EC team which showed the booth capturing and rigging by Congress-backed elements in Patiala in the recently-conducted and countermanded MC by-polls,'' he said.

''With Chief Minister Amarinder Singh openly threatening cable operators to show the pro-government channels and with an obliged police top brass and administration, we fear the worst. We have conveyed our sense of genuine insecurity to EC team and believe our suggestions and demands will get positive response from the EC team,'' Mr Joshi said.

The memo also demanded that the EC take serious note of the complaint submitted by cable operators to the Commission against police harassment and coercion to show a few pro-government Punjabi news channels.

Terming Capt Singh's remarks against cable operators ''serious'', the party also called upon the Commission to take action against his ''mischievous and derogatory surrogate ad campaigns'' in various newspapers.

UNI