Left Parties memorandum to EC

A Left parties delegation consisting of Nilotpal Basu (Central Secretariat member, CPI-M), D. Raja (MP & National Secretary, CPI), S. P. Tiwari (Central Committee member, AIFB), Dharmendra Verma (Central Committee member, AIFB) and Abani Roy (MP & Secretary, RSP) met the Election Commission of India on March 28, 2011 and submitted the following memorandum.

Dear Sir,

We are constrained to draw your attention to the very serious development where a Member of Parliament from the Trinamul Congress, Shri K. D. Singh, was carrying cash amounting to Rs. 57 lakhs. He was reported to have been traveling on March 24 in a private airplane from Delhi to Guwahati which is a poll-bound state and the Trinamul Congress is contesting a large number of seats.

We are also surprised by his reported claim that this money was legitimately drawn from a bank for his own business purposes. We are unaware of business activities in the present times which require such a major volume of cash movement. We are also surprised that the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) who held Mr. Singh and his associates along with the money and allowed to let him go. And, most importantly, the money itself was not confiscated. We think that this is rather strange because even if the source is known, nobody can vouch for the manner of end use.

In such circumstances, we would like to draw your attention to the ongoing discussion with the EC bilaterally, as well as, in the all-party meeting on the subject of use of money power as a growing electoral malpractice. It is in the last all-party meeting on March 9, 2011 that the Hon’ble Commission had observed that any press report about alleged possible misconduct regarding electoral malpractices will be taken suo moto cognizance of and enquiry will be ordered forthwith.

Therefore, monitoring of the trail of the money found in the possession of Shri Singh and a thorough enquiry of his whereabouts and activities is urgently called for.

We hope that the EC will act urgently on this very serious development and redeem its commitment of ensuring elections uncontaminated by money power.