Bengaluru: Although the elections are now only a few days away, BBMP commissioner, Manjunath Prasad, who is also the District Electoral Officer (DEO), has been given marching orders by the Election Commission of India (ECI) based on a complaint by the BJP.
The saffron party had on Wednesday dashed off a letter to the ECI in New Delhi ,claiming there were undue delays in responding to even small and routine requests of its candidates and party workers all around the state. It, in particular, targeted Mr. Prasad for both delaying and denying it permission for erecting hoardings and holding programmes for the coming poll.
The BJP said that when it first asked for permission to put up hoardings in April, the BBMP commissioner had refused to give it on one pretext or the other.
When contacted, Mr. Prasad, however, said he had not given permission to any political party to put up poll related hoardings, but being a public servant, he would accept the orders of the ECI.
Several Congress leaders , meanwhile, said they too were suffering on account of delays in granting them permission to carry out poll related work. “There are thousands of cases all over Karnataka of our party workers being caught between the exigencies of the election campaign and delayed permissions and approvals ,” said a Congress leader.
Interestingly, while the BJP has made several complaints, the DEO, Sadanand, has absolved Congress workers of electoral malpractices and blamed the saffron party’s workers instead.
