GUWAHATI, Feb 24 � The State Government is making a mockery of the Election Commission (EC) guidelines for transfer of the Government employees and officers, alleged the State Employees� Joint Action Committee.
The Committee also said that the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the State has pleaded helplessness in the face of the defiance demonstrated by the State Government officials in this regard.
The EC had sent a formal letter (No 437/6/INST/2010-CC&BE dated 14 th December, 2010) to the Chief Secretary of the State in this regard. It stated that officers who are connected or are likely to be connected with the conduct of elections in the said States (Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Pondicherry), where elections are due in the first half of 2011, should not serve in their home districts or places where they have completed three years of their service on or before March 31, 2011.
The Joint Action Committee said in a complaint to the CEO of the State that the Government in the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and the Public Works Department (PWD) seemed to have violated the above directive of the EC.
To drive home its point, the Action Committee said that one Executive Engineer of the PHED, who have been working in the PHE Division-I for the past about six years, has been promoted to the rank of Superintending Engineer recently and posted in Guwahati Circle office of the Department located in the same building.
Similarly, one PWD engineer has been working in Guwahati for the past about 15 years and he was promoted to the post of Executive Engineer in December 2007 and posted at the Fancy Bazar office of the PWD Guwahati Road Division.
The role of the Election Department in this regard is mysterious, said Manamohan Rajbongshi, one of the general secretaries of the Action Committee.
Meanwhile, specific allegations are also made by certain quarters that the Town and Country Planning Directorate is also playing the same trick to make the EC directive on the issue ineffective. One Assistant Director and one Assistant Engineer of the Directorate have been transferred to different tables in the same office to hoodwink the EC. While the Assistant Director has been working in the same place since September, 1994, the Assistant Engineer has been working in the same place since May, 2003.
Sources in the Election Department told this newspaper that if specific complaints are lodged with their office, steps would be taken in this regard. Otherwise, it is impossible on the part of the CEO�s office to initiate actions against the violators, as the number of the State Government employees is around five lakh, said the sources.
Moreover, the primary responsibility of the CEO�s office is to conduct the elections smoothly, said the sources.
