Deputy Commissioner of East Khasi Hills and Returning Officer of Shillong parliamentary constituency Sibhi C. Sadhu today appealed to all political parties to ensure that processions and rallies after the counting of votes tomorrow should not cause any disturbance to law and order.
Speaking to media persons after inspecting the counting centre at Polo Ground in Shillong, Sadhu said that although the district administration has relaxed the restrictions under Section 144 CrPC regarding rallies and processions, all other provisions under the prohibitory order are still intact in the counting centre to ensure that nobody disturbed the counting process.
“After issuing of the order, many stakeholders including political parties and some other NGOs and traditional heads have given their representations and approached us and appealed to us to relax the provision on rallies and processions and after discussing with all of them, we thought that we will relax to that extent and at the same time, we appeal to them to ensure that processions and rallies should not turn out to be some law and order disturbance,” Sadhu said.
He said that the candidates and the political parties have assured us that they will take measures from their side to ensure that no untoward incidents happen due to the rallies.
“We consulted the political parties and contesting candidates so that instruction would be that they have to give in advance to us in terms of what route they are going to take for these processions and they have to deploy enough volunteers from their side and they have to brief their teams when they conduct these processions and rallies to ensure that these rallies should not disturb others and should not create any disturbances to law and order,” Sadhu further said.
