SDM transferred as SAD seeks removal of DC, SSP

CHANDIGARH: On the instruction of the election commission, the Punjab government transferred Kapurthala SDM D S Sandhewalia whose role as the returning officer for the assembly by-election recently came under cloud.
The EC instruction came after the three-member team that visited the constituency last week found the SDM''s role suspect in enrolling new voters.Within a short span of three months, the SDM had entertained claims of more than 11,000 new voters, many of who had not submitted their addresses. The Shiromani Akali Dal had raised hue and cry over the matter fearing that the government would get large number of fake voters enrolled.
The SAD had also taken exception to the SDM serving notice on more than 2,000 voters, mainly SAD workers, for cancellation of their votes on complaints made by people. The SAD alleged that the government machinery, to deprive its supporters from voting, had fabricated the complaints.
It is learnt that the SDM never took his senior officers, including the Kapurthala deputy commissioner, into confidence. The three-member team, after scrutinising the records, had cleared 785 new votes and had directed the returning officer to shelve the claims of the remaining applicants.
Sources, however, clarified that 8,627 new applications had been received for enrolment to the voters'' list of which the claim of more than 4,800 new applicants was cancelled while that of about 3,035 persons was still pending with the office of the returning officer.
Meanwhile, the SAD staged a massive dharna in front of the deputy commissioner''s office on Monday. SAD president Parkash Singh Badal along with his senior colleagues like Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Balwinder Bhunder and SGPC president Jagir Kaur, demanded that the DC and the SP be moved out.