TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Compared to the election related complaints received ahead of the 2012 State Assembly elections, those received by Chief Electoral Officer, Goa, ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections are a trickle.
“Compared to the nearly 1800 complaints we had to deal with in 2012, this time the number of complaints is limited to single digits. This time the candidates are more interested in covering ground rather than in taking on their rivals through complaints,” an election official informed Herald.
This time the senior election officials appear more calm and relaxed. Additionally, this time the number of candidates is much less that the nearly 200 candidates who had contested last time for 40 seats to just around 20 candidates in the fray for two Lok Sabha seats.
Given the large geographical areas that candidates have to cover to at least be seen among all the voters and given that this time there appears to be less instances of money, liquor, cash, TVs, appliances and sarees being distributed, the Election Commission officials find themselves much more relaxed.
However, it is the other government officials who are being roped in for election duty who are complaining of the futility of their work. As per procedure the EC monitors all political rallies, meetings, road shows and the like. All of this is recorded on camera which is then viewed by the officials on duty.
The video footage is then reviewed by teams of civil servants sourced from other government departments where they have to sit and count the number of chairs, the kind of sound system and other paraphernalia and then arrive at an estimate of how much the candidate must have spent on the election campaign.
In the case of road shows, a vehicle of the EC follows every candidate’s motorcade wherever it goes taking brief recordings of the proceedings as it tails the motorcade wherever it goes. All this data is then compared to the statement submitted by the candidate on how much he has spent during the election. However, government servants complain that this entire exercise is futile.
“Have you ever seen a case where a candidate has been acted against for declaring less than what he has actually spent? Action is never taken,” one government official said.
The EC has powers to derecognise a party if it finds the charges against the candidate or the party strong enough. However, such stern action is hard to come by. Notices are sent out by the dozens, and candidates are asked to desist from certain acts, but concrete action that will drive fear into the minds of the candidates is unheard of, civil servants say.
