Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Thursday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to transfer all police officers who had played a partisan role in favour of the Congress party as heads of police districts during the panchayat, block samiti and zila parishad elections.
Submitting a written complaint in this regard, SAD senior vice-president Daljeet Singh Cheema said that during the block samiti and zila parishad elections, a number of incidents of booth capturing and bogus voting were reported at various places with the most such incidents occurring in Sri Muktsar Sahib.
“Supporters of SAD were threatened and even expelled from polling booths. Repolling was ordered at a total of 54 booths on September 21, 2018,” he said.
Cheema said that it was shocking that out of these 54 booths, as many as 36 booths were situated in Sri Muktsar Sahib district which was under the direct control of the ruling party’s hand-picked district police head Manjit Singh Dhesi, who is the brother of the OSD to Punjab Chief Minister.
“At that time, though the State Election Commission had given orders for re-polling at some booths, but it didn’t take action against the erring police officer as required under the law despite the serious nature of allegations levelled against him,” he said. SAD requested to the EC that even now, the same police officer was holding the post of district head, and it was not possible to expect free and a fair poll under his supervision. Cheema urged the EC “to immediately issue orders for transfer of this tainted SSP to restore people’s faith in the democratic set up of the country”.