The Opposition party, CPM has raised an allegation that Chief Minister Dr Manik Sarkar violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and urged the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO)to take steps against the violation.
In a letter addressed to the CEO, State secretary of CPM, Jitendra Chowdhury referred to Dr Saha’s visit to Jubarajnagar and Surma on Saturday and said, “The Tour Programme clearly reveals that the Chief Minister is conducting this tour mainly for election campaign purpose along with 4 of his party leaders namely Sri Tinku Roy, Sri Balai Goswami, Sri Dilip Debroy and Sri Kamal Mallik at two places, i) at Krishnapur of 57-Jubarajnagar A/C and ii) at Bamancherra of 46-Surma (SC) A/C.
The tour programme also mentions that the Hon’ble Chief Minister will conduct the entire tour by helicopter and hold meetings with the District Administration of North Tripura and Dhalai Districts where the Model Code of Conduct has been enforced following the declaration of bye-elections in two Assembly Constituencies in these Districts on May 26 last”.
The CPM state secretary pointed out, “Firstly, in conducting this tour, the Hon’ble Chief Minister has violated para (a) and (b) of rule 1 of section VII under the caption ‘Party in Power’ of Model Code of Conduct, where ‘combining the official visit with electioneering works’ by the ministers is prohibited, and use of any type of government transport for the furtherance of the interest of the party in power is forbidden.
Secondly, the District Magistrate & Collectors of both North Tripura and Dhalai Districts are now designated as District Election Officers. Without divulging any genuine purpose, meeting of Chief Minister with them creates a lot of confusions while MCC is enforced in the Districts”.
Urging the CEO to take up the matter with the Chief Minister for his clarification and take proper steps against such violation of MCC, Chowdhury said, “In the all-party meeting convened by you yesterday, CPI(M) representatives apprehended such rampant violation of the MCC by the ruling party. But we did not expect this violation of MCC by the ruling party would be started by the Hon’ble Chief Minister himself”.
