Separate poll bank a/c for candidates
EC Cracks Whip To Curb Flow Of Illegal Money
EC Cracks Whip To Curb Flow Of Illegal Money
New Delhi: For the first time, candidates for upcoming assembly elections in Bihar will have to open an exclusive poll bank account, and a shadow expenditure register will have to be maintained to monitor all expenses.
This is a part of the new guidelines issued by the Election Commission (EC) to check flow of illegal money at the hustings. In another first, the EC has set up an Election Expenditure Monitoring (EEM) cell headed by a senior Indian Revenue Service officer. The new guidelines for expenditure in elections will come into force during the Bihar polls, which is slated to be held in late October.
The cell in the EC headquarters will operate 24×7, along with its control rooms that will function from each district, where voting is being held. The EC will field surveillance teams and flying squads in each police station area of the constituencies, whose primary task is to conduct raids and seize illegal cash.
Members in the team will keep a strict vigil over expenditures made by a candidate, beginning from the filing of nomination till the declaration of the result. The new guidelines envisage arrangements for a video surveillance and viewing team for each candidate. There will be a cameraperson in the video surveillance team, who will record the number of vehicles, tents, furniture, dais, rostrums, barricades, posters and hoardings used by the candidate. In a bid to check illegal spending through paid news, a team headed by deputy district education officer and district public relations officer and their staff will monitor both print and electronic media and local cable channels and submit daily reports to the accounting team.
Modi campaign remark triggers fresh row
Patna: A sharp word from the JD(U) forced BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to retract his statement that Gujarat CM Narendra Modi would be one of the campaigners in the Bihar elections. JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav conveyed to the BJP leadership that Naqvis comment that Modi would definitely campaign in Bihar was totally unacceptable and should be swiftly clarified. Naqvi did so soon after as the JD(U) has made it amply clear that Modi was a no-go zone for the party. Three months after the BJPs alliance with JD(U) reached breakpoint over Modis ad, Naqvi set off a controversy saying, Modi is one of our stalwarts. Definitely, he will be part of the campaign in Bihar. TNN
Watch out for Nitish in Bihar poll frenzy
Patna: It was RJD chief Lalu Prasad all the way in the run up to 2005 Bihar assembly elections. Penning paeans for him, supporters wrote Lalu Chalisa and Lalu Leela collection of poems. Now its Bihar CM Nitish Kumars turn ahead of 2010 polls. Nitishs photographs on wrist watches and wall clocks in addition to the routine radium badges, writing pads, caps, stickers and T-shirts have flooded the markets. Two shops selling these articles have come up on JD(U) state headquarters premises in Patna. Prem Prakash Gupta, who has set up one of the shops, is selling watches carrying Nitishs photographs with prices ranging from Rs 60 to Rs 2,200. Gupta said his family has been in watch trade for several years and that this time he wanted to do some thing different. When Bihar assembly election dates were announced, I thought of doing something new and planned to have wrist watches with photos of popular leaders, he said. TNN