Bathinda, March 9
Faced with acute shortage of gunny bags to pack wheat during the coming procurement season that coincides with the Lok Sabha (LS) elections, the ruling alliance in the state, led by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), is making frantic efforts to meet the shortfall and has ordered the deputy commissioners of the Malwa belt to procure used bags from shellers to avoid discontent among the farming community.

D.S. Guru, principal secretary to the chief minister, today rushed here from Chandigarh and in a hurriedly convened meeting of deputy commissioners of Bathinda, Mansa and Muktsar districts ordered them to take immediate steps to meet the shortage of gunny bags that had the potential of landing the government in embarrassing position at the crucial time of voting for the LS elections.

Against the estimated requirement of 3.80 crore gunny bags, only 1.50 crore bags were available to pack the fresh produce of grain. The problem has got compounded due to the ongoing strike by the employees of the Jute Corporation of India.

The shortage of gunny bags is giving sleepless nights to the SAD leadership that has been trying to placate the farmers of the Malwa belt where the party received drubbing at the hands of the Congress in the last Assembly elections.

Besides, the divisional commissioner of Faridkot, B.S. Sudan, and deputy commissioners Rahul Tewari, Kumar Rahul and Rajat Aggarwal of Bathinda, Mansa and Muktsar respectively, officers of various procurement agencies were present in the meeting that was chaired by Guru.

The procurement agencies also apprised Guru of the other problem of shortage of space for stacking the wheat bags after procurement. Against the required space for stacking the expected quantity of 19 lakh tonnes of wheat, there is a shortage of space for 7 lakh tonnes at present. Official figures indicate that only 12 lakh tonnes storage capacity was available so far.

The authorities in the three districts have been asked to take immediate steps to process the applications for additional storage capacity that have been received in response to an advertisement of the government. The space for stacking has to be prepared with brick lined base by March 31 after completing the legal formalities with the landowners.

The problem of space was acute in the Mansa district.

Moga, March 9
District magistrate Satwant Singh Johal today constituted six committees for effective implementation of the model code of conduct in the district that falls under the Faridkot Lok Sabha constituency. These committees have been constituted for Moga (town), Moga (rural), Baghapurana (town), Baghapurana (rural), Nihalsinghwala and Dharamkot areas. 

The respective sub-divisional magistrates, executive officers of the municipal councils or tehsildars have been made as chairpersons of these committees that also include deputy superintendents of police and station house officers of the police stations besides other officials as members.

These committees would monitor the jurisdiction of their respective areas and ensure that no political party or candidate raise posters, banners and paint walls with slogans at public places, use loudspeakers or conduct rallies without permission and look into all such violations and take action accordingly as prescribed in the book of the model code of conduct issued by the election, he said.

"I have asked the chairpersons of these committees to submit a report with regard to violations of the poll code daily to his office", said Johal. He warned that no political party or individual would be allowed to violate the poll code, otherwise, actions that may include criminal proceedings would be initiated against them.

"The provisions of Public Property Defacement Act have been invoked and penalty would be imposed on the political parties and candidates violating the poll code", he added.

He has also asked the committees to remove all posters, banners and wall paintings from their respective areas and prepare video film of all such operations. All political rallies should also be video-graphed, he said. The expenses involved in removing the slogans, banners and party symbols would be added on to the poll expenditure of the respective political parties and candidates, he added.

The DM has also asked the leaders of the party in power in the state not to misuse their official status for campaigning. Ministers, MLA's, politicians enjoying the posts of chairpersons and members of corporations, boards, municipal councils have been banned from linking official tours with electioneering or utilising official machinery or employees for campaigning. 

Bathinda, March 9
Following the fears of violence in the coming Lok Sabha polls in Bathinda, expressed by the Punjab Human Rights Committee (PHRC), the Election Commission of India (ECI) today sought a quick reply from the district administration over the matter. The administration acting swiftly today filed its detailed reply with the ECI.

As per sources, citing incidents of violence occurred in the recently held local bodies polls, Ved Parkash Gupta, general secretary of the PHRC had filed a complaint with the ECI on February 17 where he had expressed apprehension of such activities again in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

While accusing the Bathinda police for hand-in-glove with the ruling alliance, he mentioned that earlier SAD (B) had deployed ‘goons’ from Haryana, now Congress under the leadership of former CM Amarinder Singh had been organising groups of ‘goons’ to counter the SAD-led ‘goons’.

Accusing CM Parkash Singh Badal for deliberately opposing the deployment of the Central forces, he had urged the ECI to take appropriate action for the smooth conduct of the polls and deploy the Central forces.

The ECI today seeking immediate reply from the district administration issued a memo number Elect-2009/complaints/Bathinda-151. In reply the deputy commissioner, Bathinda, Rahul Tewari, vide memo number 37/Election-2009 sent an attached copy of statement filed by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Bathinda.

In the statement, SSP Ashish Chaudhary assured to conduct free and fair polls. He mentioned that for that he had already projected a requirement of over 3,800 cops.

The SSP said, “Near the polling time, steps like flag marches would also be undertaken in the district.”

Bathinda, March 9
Having detected large scale copying during the class XII English examination held today at Faridkot, a flying squad has recommended to the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) to cancel the answer papers of three identified centres.

The flying squad headed by Parminder Kaur Sandhu, a member of the academic council of the PSEB, has recommended that the answer papers in the three examination centres at

SD Senior Secondary School, New Model Senior Secondary School and Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Senior Secondary School should be cancelled.

The flying squad caught red handed 19 students at Faridkot and 3 in Bathinda while copying.

Sandhu said she has reported to the district education officer, Faridkot, Baljeet Singh Brar, about the “involvement” of teaching staff in copying by students.

She told this correspondent that students were seen copying from guides, 
pocket books and Xeroxed material in the full gaze of invigilators.

Some of the material was seized by the flying squad. Subject experts were found sitting with students in the examination hall.

She said that copying in examination has reached an alarming level in Faridkot that has already been rocked by irregularities in conduct of the entrance test for medical course in which “fake” students appeared.

Other members of the flying squad were Sukhminder Kaur, Jagvant Singh and Sukhdeep Kaur.

Bathinda, March 9
Harminder Singh Jassi, local MLA ,and Raninder Singh, the probable candidate for the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency and son of former CM Capt Amarinder Singh, who had never seen each other eye to eye, were seen working together while addressing party workers here today. Raninder said it was high time they stood against the high-handedness of the ruling Badals and asked the party workers not to tolerate it any further.

The general secretary of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) said he feared large-scale rigging in the ensuing parliamentary elections, adding that he would request the Election Commission to deploy central forces in the state to ensure free and fair elections.

Lashing out at the SAD-BJP combine, he said corruption was at its peak as 50 departments out of the total 75 were being run by the Badal family or their near ones.

He said assurances made before the announcement of polls to the colonisers, industry people and to teaching community was nothing but a bundle of lies. “Deputy chief minister, Sukhbir Singh Badal is providing them with sugar-coated pills.”

Raninder claimed that his party would win all the 13 Lok Sabha seats with thumping majority.

He said, “After winning the elections, our priority would be to look after the down-trodden.” Raninder added that poll plank of development works won’t work as a gameplan of the SAD-BJP combine in the forthcoming polls.

He urged the workers to reach out to the electorate to garner votes for the Congress.

Among others, Tahal Singh Sandhu, secretary, PPCC, and Ashok Kumar, president, District Congress Committee (urban), were present on the occasion.