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President asks EC to ensure fair, peaceful poll
President K R Narayanan today asked the Election Commission to take all possible steps to ensure a peaceful and fair general election and expressed confidence that the political parties would keep criminal elements out of the poll arena.
Expressing concern over criminalisation of politics, Narayanan
said the whole world was keenly watching the electoral process in
India. Therefore, it was incumbent on all political parties to
see that only ''good'' candidates were fielded in the election.
The President spoke to an Election Commission team,
led by Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill, at
Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Commission today said it would ask suspected troublemakers in Uttar Pradesh to sign bonds, promising good behaviour, in view of the Lok Sabha poll.
It has vetoed the objections raised by the UP government in this regard, stating that the step had paid off in the
last election where nearly 150,000 persons were asked to sign such bonds.
The state government had objected to the Commission's
plan of putting curbs on such a large number of people.
The Kalyan Singh government contended that the move could be dropped since there was a popular government in power.
However, the Commission's representative, at a high-level
meeting presided over by the state chief secretary, rejected the
objection. In the 1996 election, when the strategy was used, no serious incident of violence was reported, the EC said.
According to official figures, while 118 people lost their lives and hundreds were injured in election-related violence in 1991, the casualty figure was negligible in the 1996 election, when the bonds were signed.
The Commission also asked the Maharashtra and Punjab governments to immediately stop doling out alleged largesse to the people in view of the poll, EC sources said
According to published reports, the Maharashtra government
proposed to provide free houses to dalits while the Punjab
government's proposals include free electricity to the
downtrodden.
The Commission said it favoured providing a level-playing field to
all the political parties. Therefore, doling out financial
concessions could be regarded as giving gifts to the electorate, the
Commission said in identical letters to the chief secretaries of the
two states.
UNI
EARLIER REPORT:
EC to announce poll dates in advance
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