New Collector assures free and fair poll

Madurai, June 16 (UNI) Holding free and fair polls for the byelection to the Madurai West Assembly constituency is the priority of the new district Collector G Sundaramurthy, appointed on the orders of the Election Commission (EC).

Speaking to mediapersons after assuming charge here, he assured that the June 26 bypoll would be conducted as per the norms of the EC.

Cracking with the whip, the Commission had, on June 13, transferred the then Collector S S Jawahar, Commissioner of Police A Subramaninan, also an ADGP, the RDO and Returning Officer A Narayanamurthy, Deputy Police Commissioner S D Rajendran and Assistant Police Commissioner M Rajendran among others on the charge of laxity in enforcing the rules during the filing of nominations.

Inspector General of Police (South Zone) Sanjeev Kumar has been asked by the EC to be the Commissioner of Police in-charge.

The Commission has also served a show-cause notice to city Mayor G Thenmozhi of the ruling DMK for violation of the model code.

Meanwhile, three companies of the CRPF landed here yesterday as part of elaborate security arrangements for the byelection. These were only the first batch and additional reinforcements were expected, police sources said.

Apart from three companies of the Tamil Nadu special police, a company of the Swift Action Force would be drafted for election duty.

UNI