New Delhi: After raid on its party office in Varanasi, BJP appealed to Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath to "exercise his authority" to ensure that no rigging takes place during last leg of polling on Monday.
BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi appealed to CEC to act and "establish the authority" of a constitutional body by putting in place adequate machinery and central forces to see no "wrong-doing" takes place.
Lekhi said that it is not the CEC who is working in a partisan manner but the UP authorities, whom she alleged "are working under the Chief Minister and others."
Lekhi also listed four constituencies-- Azamgarh, Goshi, Jaunpur and Ghazipur-- where she claimed rigging and violence are expected.
"I want to ask the CEC what arrangements it has put in place in Azamgarh, Goshi, Jaunpur and Ghazipur, where there is possibility of rigging and violence and other wrongdoings," she said.
"They cannot, they are not supposed to. That is why I want CEC`s intervention. At the time when elections are going on, the administration has to be free from political pressure. But it doesn`t seem to be.
"It needs to control the situation which is going out of hand and that is why I am requesting the CEC to intervene and put things in order. Under that authority, they need to act now and establish that authority," she said.
Lekhi also questioned the raid on BJP office in Varanasi and said why other party`s offices were not raided as it could yield much better results for EC.
A total of 42 seats, including some high-profile constituencies are going to polls tomorrow.
Prominent among them are Varanasi from where Narendra Modi is contesting, Rae Bareli from where Sonia Gandhi is contesting and Azamgarh from where Mulayam Singh Yadav is contesting.
On today`s raid, Lekhi rejected the charges and sought CEC`s intervention, alleging that the UP authorities are working at the behest of the state government.
"I request the CEC to intervene and put the position in order," she said, adding, "We want action by the constitutional body".
She also questioned why only the BJP office was raided and not that of others as "the poll authorities could have recovered a lot more had they raided others also".
Lekhi said the raid was conducted a day before polls only to pressurise the BJP supporters and workers so that they are unable to come out during polling.
"The district authorities claim that they are working under the Election Commission, but it seems they are still working under the state government`s authorities," she said.
Lekhi said my question to EC is, "there are irregularities and we want this to be corrected because it is the last date of polling and we want action."
The BJP said a question mark was put on the EC after it treated alleged violations differently and cited the case of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi.
"In one case, an FIR was registered first and decision taken later and on the other, the decision was taken earlier and no FIR was registered," she said.
