The Congress has lodged a complaint with the office of the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Madhya Pradesh, accusing 14 non-MLA ministers of misusing their posts to influence voters in the bypolls campaign and seeking their removal from the posts.
All these ministers, who were Congress MLAs earlier, are contesting the bypolls on BJP tickets. The complaint was lodged by Narendra Saluja, media coordinator of MP Congress Committee chief Kamal Nath.
In the complaint, the Congress has said that the ministers are putting under pressure the officials, employees and other subordinates in their departments to get them to influence voters in their favour.
Also, these minister candidates are conducting fake foundation stone laying ceremonies and using fake schemes related to their departments to confuse and deceive the voters and also violating election code of conduct, the complaint said.
The party has urged the election commission to order removal of these ministers from their posts so that the elections could be conducted in a free and fair manner.
Of the 28 BJP candidates in the fray, 25 are ex-Congress MLAs and 14 of them ministers in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet. This is probably the first time that so many ministers are trying their luck in bypolls.
The Congress has been lodging individual complaints against different BJP candidates including ministers Bisahulal Singh and Brajendra Singh Yadav for allegedly trying to entice voters with distribution of money and sarees respectively. Complaint was also lodged against Singh for alleged corruption and helping mafia in hoarding of food grains.
The ministers against whom the complaints have been lodged include: Govind Singh, Tulsi Silawat, Imarti Devi, Prabhuram Choudhary, Bisahulal Singh, Aindal Singh Kansana, Mahendra Singh Sisodia, Pradyumna Singh Tomar, Hardeep Dang, Rajvardhan Singh Dattigaon, Brajendra Singh Yadav, Girraj Dandotiya, O.P.S Parihar and Suresh Dhakad.
