Poll panel refused to remove partial officials in Vadodara: Mistry

The Election Commission didn't remove the district magistrate and the superintendent of police of Vadodara despite their bias vis-a-vis BJP leader and candidate Narendra Modi, Congress candidate there Madhusudan Mistry said Friday.

Mistry contested against Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial aspirant, in the Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency in Gujarat. Modi, the Gujarat chief minister, is also contesting from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

Mistry said he made several complaints to the Election Commission that the district magistrate and the superintendent of police were partial towards Modi but the poll panel refused to transfer them.

"They filed two criminal complaints against me. One was for damaging public property when it was not a public property and a second false case was for a statement I made.

"They wanted to slap a third criminal case against me for giving a statement about Sushma Swaraj but they dropped the idea after the Election Commission sent a central observer due to my complaints," he said.

The first criminal complaint was filed when Mistry protested that Modi's posters had been put on most hoardings in the constituency, and he (Mistry) then tried to put his own publicity material on some of them.

Mistry said that despite writing to the Election Commission and holding a day-long protest, his request to shunt out the officers was not accepted.

"The EC should not come under Modi's pressure and remove the district magistrate of Varanasi when they didn't do the same in Vadodara," Mistry said.