Cong complaints to Election Commission against Raman Singh

            Raigarh, September 1, 2008: The opposition Congress has urged the Election Commission to bar the Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh from contesting the election for misutilising state exchequer for campaign of his BJP in the November assembly election.

            The gathering of Panchayat workers in the name of the poverty eradication convention cum training programme on Tuesday last was an eyewash by the Chhattisgarh Government and it was only a corrupt practice to gather a crowd to impress BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani by the Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh and his government, former Home Minister and senior Congress leader Nand Kumar Patel in a fax to the Chief Election Commission said.

            Hence the people involved in such corrupt practices should be barred from contesting the next election as per the Section 8 (A) of the People’s Representative Act- 1951, Patel said in his letter.

            Advani kicked off the poll campaign for BJP on Tuesday last from Sapre Maidan of Raipur for which crowed was gathered by the ruling party from the funds of state exchequer, the Kharsia Congress MLA claimed.

            Even though the “Naba Anjor” or poverty eradication programme was not running in all the places of the state but the local government here had ordered all the gram panchayats of the state to give Rs 1000 to each of the members of their Panchayats to attend the poverty eradication convention cum training programme, which was inaugurated by Advani, Patel said.

            The official letter addressed to the panchayats said the training would be started at 4.05 pm and end at 5:00 PM on that day, the Congress leader said and asked how it was possible in less than an hour thousands of panchayat workers could be trained in one place.

            Because of that the people involved in such corrupt practices should be barred from contesting the next election as per the Section 8 (A) of the People’s Representative Act- 1951, he said.