Is SEC working as Maharashtra govt’s puppet? asks Congress

Pune: Maharashtra Election Commission’s actions to postpone elections to some local bodies and the counting of votes raise doubts whether the poll body is working as a “puppet” of the government, state Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said on Tuesday.

He alleged that the state poll body was working at the behest of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

“Irregularities have taken place on a large scale in these elections. There is scope to doubt whether the Election Commission is working as a puppet in the hands of the government. Postponing the polls earlier and now deferring the counting of votes have exposed this,” the Congress leader told reporters.

He claimed the poll panel had failed to conduct free and fair elections and demanded action against erring officials.

“Thousands of complaints have been raised. The BJP, Shiv Sena and the NCP have created chaos at the local level and trampled upon the model code of conduct,” Sapkal alleged. He also accused the BJP of “orchestrating a farce using money power”, and registration of a case against Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar showed the misuse of power.

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the SEC not to hold the counting of votes for the first phase of local body polls on December 3, on the ground that the “disclosure of public mood” through the results might affect the subsequent phase of the elections.

The results of Tuesday’s elections should be published along with the results of the December 20 elections, the HC said. In a subsequent statement, the SEC said the counting of votes for elections to all 288 municipal councils and nagar panchayats will be on December 21.