Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab elections: SAD urges EC to reconsider ban on rallies, meetings

CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday urged the Election Commission (EC) to reconsider its ban on election rallies and corner meetings in Punjab, stating that the poll panel should allow small meetings as they were a must for candidates to approach all sections of society. SAD spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema, in a letter to the EC, said the panel’s ban on election rallies, pad yatras, corner meetings up to January 15 was causing great hardship to candidate of all parties. He said it was not possible to cover all voters of the assembly constituency in digital mode as there were many backward areas where internet networks were not working properly. Old people, which constitute a major part of the population, rarely use digital methods and people from poor sections of society also have little access to digital technology, he added. Therefore, a major part of society will remain uncovered if only digital campaigning is allowed, said Cheema. “This will deny equal opportunity to all voters. This will also affect the percentage of polling,” said the SAD leader, adding that they agreed that big rallies could be banned, but small meetings were a must. Allow meetings, appeals farm group to poll panelJamhuri Kisan Sabha state president Satnam Singh Ajnala, whose group is a part of Sanyukt Samaj Morcha, said their campaigning depended on door-to-door visits. "We can do the same while sticking to Covid guidelines. The EC should allow people to at least hold nukkad meetings, may be with a small gathering, but it's the lifeline of our political campaign," he said. 'AAP violating code'SAD spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema claimed that parties in power at the Centre, and in Punjab and Delhi, were misusing public funds to promote political interests. He said AAP was in power in Delhi, but it was showing multiple development stories in the form of paid news on television channels of Punjab. "Since there is no code of conduct in Delhi, AAP is exploiting this loophole and spending crores on paid news advertisements. This puts other parties at a disadvantage," said the SAD leader. AAP, BJP go digitalAAP spokesperson Gurbhej Singh said EC's guidelines with respect to Covid suited their party the most since they had been using the digital mode for long and wanted EC to take strict note of those violating its directions. He said AAP candidates had already conducted door-to-door campaigning with a small group of people and now they were extensively using the virtual modes, for which they had dedicated teams. "We have much leverage in social media presence as compared to our rivals," he said. BJP Amritsar district president Suresh Mahajan said they had been told to make arra- ngements to set up at least 100 screens for people to attend a virtual rally organized in Chandigarh on January 16

The Times of India

2022-01-15