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Journalism of Courage
SEPT 22: The Punjab government has stated before the Election Commission that “not even a single paise” of government money was spent on the helipad being used by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal Pawan at Raikot in Ludhiana district. A “vacant piece” of land that did not require any construction was used for the purpose, it has said.
The reply sent to EC Secretary T.R. Prasad by the Punjab government was in response to an explanation demanded from Chief Secretary R.S. Mann yesterday by the commission on whether Badal had skirted the code of conduct by having a helipad constructed just outside the Sunam constituency that will see a bypoll shortly. The EC had wanted to know whether the helipad had been constructed with government expenditure to facilitate the Sunam election campaign of Badal.
The reply by the Punjab government today states that Badal’s helicopter had landed on two occasions on a vacant 50-acre piece of land owned by the Punjab Small Scale Industries and Exports Corporation.
Sources in the EC did not indicate if any action was in the offing under the code of conduct since the Punjab government had categorically declared that no expenditure had been incurred. “At the maximum, certain levelling work would have been undertaken, which involves negligible expenditure. However, the EC has other sources of reports other than the Punjab government and will take a decision on (the basis of) an overall assessment,” said sources in the Punjab government.
Meanwhile, the EC has also instructed the state government to keep a strict watch on the strength of Badal and his ministers’ cavalcades. Sources in the EC said that these instructions had been issued on the basis of the report submitted to the EC by Secretary K.K. Rao, who had visited Sunam yesterday to monitor the status of the code of conduct.
The state government has also been asked to submit a report by tomorrow evening on the allegations against six officials who were allegedly found campaigning for SAD-BJP candidate Parminder Singh Dhindsa.
