Chandigarh, March 24
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has objected to the way several Punjab police officers named in poll-related complaints have been let off. The version of complainants have not been taken into account while investigating cases. 

The CEO has asked the state Principal Secretary (Home) to send his remarks on all the reports, separately, at the earliest.

This follows the Election Commission expressing its dissatisfaction over the reports sent by the Punjab Additional Director General of Police (Election Cell).

At the routine media briefing today, Additional Chief Electoral Office Raminder Singh said the list of complaints included names of IGP (Intelligence), Bathinda, Jatinder Jain; and IGP, Bathinda zone, Paramjit Singh Umranangal for allegedly helping the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). They also included Commissioner, Ludhiana, Paramjit Singh Gill; SSP (Bathinda) Gurpreet Bhullar; SSP, Mansa, Bhupinder Singh Khatra; and SSP, Ferozepur, Manwinder Singh.

Official sources said most complaints referred to “acts of omission and commission for helping the ruling SAD alliance. All the officers named in the complaints have been called blue-eyed boys of the ruling alliance and close to the top leaders of the party, mainly the Deputy Chief Minister.” The Chief Electoral Office has separated a complaint against SSP (Ferozepur) from among the others, saying it was an old complaint being linked to the current elections.

The case pertained to Paramjit Singh, a resident of Vanawali village in Ferozepur, who had complained that the SSP had threatened him when he went to complain against certain proclaimed offenders roaming freely in the constituency and were indulging in chasing political rivals on the streets.

The complainant had alleged that the ruling party did not allow any other political party to put up their polling help desks on the day of polling in that stretch of 20-odd villages that had a majority ‘Dalit’ population. This amounted to illegal polling.

The case has been sent by the Vice-Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Raj Kumar Verka, to the Home Secretary seeking an immediate answer.

The Additional Chief Electoral Office said “the Election Commission does not appreciate the fact that complainants had not been associated with the dealing of the cases at the official level by the office of CSR Reddy, ADGP (Election Cell), before the officers were given a clean chit. “Officers facing charges, of course, will not say anything against themselves. This made the entire exercise look lopsided. The matter needs an official input from the Home Department as well”.

He said, “We are expecting an answer from the office of the Home Secretary within 24 hours.”