EC not getting police support, says parl panel

Bhopal: Chairman of the parliament standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice said here on Friday that the election commission was not getting "adequate police support" at the state-level.
During his visit to Bhopal, committee chairman EMS Natchiappan said there were 2,40,215 cases of violation of model code of conduct in Madhya Pradesh during 2013 Vidhan Sabha polls.Of them FIRs were registered in 324 cases. Similarly, he said, in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, there were 1,49,940 cases of code violation and FIR was registered in 216 cases. He said, "Despite these FIRs no one was punished. At state-level the election commission doesn't get adequate police support." Expressing apprehensions, Natchiappan said if the trend continued the model code of conduct will become a toothless tiger and emphasised on the need for "effective implementation of the law".
During its stopover at Bhopal while on a visit to Chennai and Bangalore, the committee members had a meeting with the representatives of political parties along with the joint chief electoral officer regarding implementation of the model code of conduct.