Financial activities of candidates should be gauged minutely: Chief Electoral Officer Punjab

Chandigarh, March 23: Abiding by the provisions of the Model Code of Conduct for ensuring Parliamentary Elections, every Financial activity of any candidates should be gauged minutely to provide level playing field to all candidates. It was instructed by the Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab Dr. S. Karuna Raju today, while Presiding over a meeting of officers and representatives of various banks working in the state of Punjab, at his office here.

Interacting with bank representatives, the CEO apprised that the Election Commission of India has framed rules to conduct fair, transparent and peaceful elections besides giving all candidates and parties level playing field. “As per the directions of ECI, Several monitoring teams have also been formed to execute such rules in letter and spirit, which were continuously working on assigned tasks”, he said.

Dr. Raju said that the election expenditure limit for the person interested to contest the elections has been fixed Rs.70 lac by the Election Commission of India and the candidate has to spend all this expenditure through the account opened according to the directives of the Election Commission of India.

Dr. Raju said that Banks should ensure that there is no difficulty in opening an account as per Election Commission instructions and every financial activities of already existed bank accounts of the family members of candidate is being closely monitored.

He further said that there is a large proportion of buyers, who purchases goods through e-commerce companies. If a candidate or concerned person purchases large number of goods through online payment, he/she should also be supervised as these goods goods could be used to allure voters.

During meeting, the the Punjab State Coordinator of the State Level Bank Committee (SLBC) has been appointed nodal officer for elections to monitor the proper implementation of Model Code of Conduct in the functioning of banks and to immediately coordinate with banks. He directed to convene weekly meeting of representatives to assess monitoring and supervision of the banks.

The CEO instructed the officer to erect posters in bank premises giving details to ferry amount to the general public and expenditure limit for the candidate during the enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct.