M A I N   N E W S

EC team meets officials on code violation
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 7
Two Election Commission of India representatives, Mr Afjal Amanullah, state Observer for the Haryana Assembly elections, and Mr R. Aggarwal, a Principal Secretary in the ECI office, today met senior Haryana Government officials in connection with the alleged violation of the model code by the state government.

Mr Amanullah, who has started sitting in a room in the sixth floor of the civil secretariat, and his colleague Mr Aggarwal had meetings with the Chief Secretary, Mr Sunil Ahuja, Home Secretary, Mr Dharam Vir, DGP, Mr M.S. Malik, and Director, Public Relations, Mr R.K. Khullar, on the issue of poll code violation by the state government.

It was learnt that the ECI representatives focussed primarily on two issues — the recruitment of constables after announcement of the election dates, and special supplement released by an English daily recently on the Om Prakash Chautala-led government’s achievements.

While the Home Secretary and the DGP reportedly argued that recruitment of constables did not amount to violation of the model code, the DPR told the ECI that the supplement was brought out by the newspaper on its own and the state government had nothing to do with it.

Interestingly, the supplement in question had been published as a “special report” and not as an advertisement feature. The latter could have put the state government in a soup.

The ECI representatives would shortly submit a report to the commission on the result of their probe.