Poll body chief removed ahead of state election

Bhopal: In a late evening development on Tuesday, the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Madhya Pradesh Saleena Singh, a 1986 batch IAS officer, was removed from her post.

Ms Singh was replaced by V.L. Kanta Rao, a 1992 batch IAS officer .The development has created a stir in the political circles here since it came ahead of Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, scheduled to be held in November-December this year.

However, sources in chief electoral officer’s office here however described it as a “normal practice” in which a CEO is usually changed after completing three years in the post.

Ms Singh, who had been appointed as CEO on June 26, 2015, had earlier caused discomfiture in the ruling BJP circle when she served notices to chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the latter’s two ministerial colleagues for poll code violations during the recently held Assembly by-elections in Kolaras and Mungaoli.

She had also ordered deletion of 6.7 lakh voters who were found either dead or ineligible for some other reasons.

She had stirred a controversy when she allegedly asked reporters not to cover a development in which a VVPAT was found to be dispensing slips of only a single party during the demonstration of the voting machine a few weeks ago.

While describing it a routine official exercise, sources said the ECI had sought a panel of names from chief secretary of MP government B P Singh to replace her.

Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Ajey Singh sought to know why Ms Singh was removed from her post when assembly elections were barely five months away in the state. He suspected that she might have been shifted from the post for exposing bogus voters.