Free, fair election to strengthen democracy: National Election Watch

BHUBANESWAR: “The political parties should not use money and muscle power to derail the process of free and fair election during the fast approaching General Election in 2014,” said representatives of the political parties while attending a State level conference on electoral and political reforms organised by the State chapter of the National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) here on Friday.    

Discussing on “Building Environment for Free and Fair Elections 2014”, senior leader of the Congress Narasingha Mishra said the ruling party should not use administrative power during election to get benefit. Most of the political leaders advocate not to cross expenditure limit set by the Election Commission of India (ECI), but it is violated by the political leaders several times, he added.

Mishra also said the voters need to be sensitised about the free and fair polls before every election. “The voters should not be biased by the political leaders for money and other gifts. They should reject the candidate who use money and muscle power to get vote,” said Mishra.

Gracing the occasion, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) State executive body member Dhanada Kanta Mishra said the country should come up with political reforms so that family raj and criminalisation in politics can be checked.

Leaders like Narendra Swain from BJD, Ashok Sahu from BJP, Kharvela Swain from Utkal Bharat, Dibakar Nayak from the Communist Party of India, Santosh Das from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and delegates of other parties attended the conference. 

Among others, former DGP AB Tripathy, former Chief Secretary Sahadev Sahoo, National Election Watch (NEW) head Anil Verma and NEW Odisha State coordinator Ranjan Mohanty participated in the discussions.