The Election Commission of India has decided that no advertisement of political nature shall be allowed on any building or space owned by the government or public sector bodies even if the space has been rented out to private contractors. Disclosing this here today, Mr. Supreet Singh Gulati, Additional CEO Punjab said that this communiqué has been received in response to a complaint forwarded to ECI regarding misusing of public/government property for political campaign material. He said that all the DEOs have been asked for compliance of ECI direction.
Meanwhile, Mr. Amit Talwar, Joint CEO Punjab said that the ECI has directed to immediately shift 6400 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to Punjab from Haryana, Orissa, NCT of Delhi and Karnataka for smooth conduct of General Elections to Lok Sabha-2014 in state. He said that keeping in view the number of more than 15 candidates in 10 out of 13 Parliamentary constituencies in Punjab, the ECI had been requested to provide more EVMs as in these constituencies 2 EVMs would be required for each polling booth. He said that only 3 constituencies namely Ferozepur, Gurdaspur and Fatehgarh Sahib have 15 or less than 15 candidates in poll fray. He said that the movement of vehicles bringing EVMs Punjab would be monitored by ECI through ‘Software for tracking movement of EVMs’ on daily basis until it reaches the destination. The expenditure on packing forwarding and transportation charges in full would be borne by CEO Punjab, he added.