Conduct code crossing all limits, says Dy CM

AURANGABAD, AUG 8: Gopinath Munde, on Sunday warned that the election code of conduct as being enforced by state election commissioner, D K Shankaran, had crossed the limit of excessiveness and that there was a danger of a law and order situation if things continued in the present form. Munde said he would soon request Shankaran to hold an all party meeting to discuss the problems being faced by them since the code was invoked.

Munde was at the receiving end of the election commission all through his campaign in the state recently. At Aurangabad on Sunday at least four cases of violation of the code were registered against his party while in Amravati he was asked to cancel his public meeting as he was getting onto the dias.When reminded that Shankaran had already declared that he does not need to talk about the code, Munde asked, “does he think a state of emergency has been declared in Maharashtra, that politicians and bureaucrats cannot have a dialogue?”

“We have been allowed to put up at governmentrest houses but then banned from visiting partymen or holding a press conferences within its premises. Aren’t elections all about going to the people? Then why all the ridiculous interpretations?” Munde asked.

Munde said the commission’s decision to book a case against the Granthi at the gurudwara at Nanded for having talked to Sharad Pawar, when he went there to offer prayers, was an example of how problematic the code had become.

BJP leaders were of the opinion that while most district level bureaucrats and police officials were quite lenient in the implementation of the code, Shankaran was putting undue pressure on them to follow his diktats.