Thiruvananthapuram: The use of flex boards was far less this time, as per reports from various quarters. One cannot find too many of those plastic remnants after this Assembly election, according to Anil Kumar Pandala, vice-president, TRDCL. When compared to the local body elections, the violations are far less, he said.
“Immediately after the election, many were seen removing them. We bank on the district administration to penalise those who would not remove the boards,” said Mr Pandala. During the local body polls, district collector Biju Prabhakar had issued an ultimatum saying that if political parties don’t remove their boards, the administration would, and later fine the political parties.
“In assembly elections, removing flex boards is part of the election expenditure of all parties. So we will be waiting for the parties to do it,” he said. Mayor V. K. Prashanth has issued a press statement requesting all of them to remove their boards. Flex boards in some of the arterial roads have been removed. Party representatives said that they would be removing them soon.
BJP district president S. Suresh said, “Most flex boards were shifted close to the polling stations before elections. These have been removed. The rest will be removed over coming days.” CPM district secretary Anavoor Nagappan also said they will be removing flex boards.
However, Thiruvana- nthapuram DCC president Karakulam Krishna Pillai said they did not have flex boards on public properties. “All our flex boards were in private compounds,” he said. Plastic-free poll To keep the polling areas a plastic-free zone, Suchitwa Mission had deployed volunteers.
Mission executive director K. Vasuki said, “The volunteers tried to encourage people not to take in plastic bottles. We did not get too many volunteers to participate as it was vacation time.”
