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A six-member delegation of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee on Friday submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission stating that the caretaker government in Gujarat was using state funds and administrative machinery to try and improve the Bharatiya Janata Party's chances in the upcoming assembly election.
"The delegation also sought the reversal of the large-scale transfers of bureaucrats that the Narendra Modi government has made..." Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said in New Delhi.
The delegation, comprising Shaktisinh Gohil, Gaurav Pandya, Raju Parmar, Hasmukh Patel, Savsi Makwana and Mohammed Hussain Baloch, told the commission: "Though elections have been declared, state ministers are openly violating the code of conduct.
"Tours of ministers are like election meetings and campaigns. Telephones, correspondence and the government staff are being utilised."
The ministers were being provided with police escorts and pilot vehicles at such 'election meetings', the memorandum said.
"The police machinery is being utilised in order to impress voters. The language and the words used by [caretaker] Chief Minister Narendra Modi during the so-called Gaurav Yatra violated the code of conduct.
"In all, 382 hoardings have been displayed, monthly expenditure of which amounts to Rs 42 lakh [Rs 4.2 million]; the price of digital photos of Modi would be around Rs 15 lakh [Rs 1.5 million]," the memorandum said, adding the hoardings did not carry the name of the publisher.
The delegation said that the hoardings should be removed and the expenses incurred in this connection should be recovered from Modi or the BJP and deposited in the treasury.
They also alleged that Modi had prepared a CD at the cost of Rs 50 lakh [Rs 5 million].
Modi paid Rs 2 crore [Rs 20 million] to get the tag of best chief minister through a survey, the delegation said.
"The so called Gaurav Yatra was also an election-oriented programme of the BJP for which Modi misused public funds," it added.
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