Political parties in Gujarat make representation to EC

The EC team is on a visit to the state where elections are scheduled to be held in December this year. Apart from Sampath, those in the team included election commissioner H S Brahma and deputy election commissioner Vinod Zutshi.

The term of Chief Minister Narendra Modi's government ends in December and he will be seeking fourth term, while the opposition Congress and anti-Modi group of BJP, led by Keshubhai Patel, have also started preparations for polls.

In a representation to the EC, a four-member team of Congress led by state vice-president Balubhai Patel demanded that keeping in mind the political situation in the state, the elections should be held in one phase.

The Congress also raised doubts over functioning of EVMs and said that technicians operating EVMs should be directly under the EC, instead of the state government.

The party requested the EC that elections should not be held under the current in-charge DGP and a full time DGP should be appointed. Chitranjan Singh is the in-charge DGP of the state.

It said that the officials, who are said to be close to the Modi government, should not be involved in election related activities. However, they did not specify if they have given a list of the officials or not.

The Congress said over three lakh state government employees are involved in election-related duties and do not get a chance to vote. The EC should make arrangements so that they can vote. (MORE)