Chandigarh, May 16
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked the State Election Commission to give justice to its candidates who were denied No Objection Certificates (NOCs) by the Majitha municipal committee Executive Officer (EO) or else it would be faced to approach the Punjab and Haryana high court for the same.
A SAD delegation led by senior leader Bikram Singh Majithia met State Election Commissioner Raj Kamal Chaudhary and informed him that no candidate of the party was given the required NOC which is required to contest the forthcoming municipal elections for four consecutive days. Majithia said following this all candidates of the SAD had filed their nomination papers along with an affidavit declaring that they had cleared all required dues and that their papers were in order.
Asserting that the chief minister’s OSD – Rajbir Ghuman was directly interfering in the election process, Mr Majithia said, “Now we have learnt that pressure is being put on EO Ramandeep Waraich to reject the nomination of half of our candidates so that the SAD becomes ineligible to form its President”. He urged the SEC to take note of the matter and ensure that the nomination papers of SAD candidates in Majitha were not rejected due to extraneous reasons.
Majithia also registered a strong complaint against the functioning of the Majitha EO with the SEC. He said the EO – Ramandeep Waraich was admonished by the Election Commission of India in June 2025 during the Ludhiana Central bypoll with a directive being issued that disciplinary action should be taken against him. He said despite this Waraich was given the responsibility of the Executive Officer in Majitha.
Listing how the EO had denied NOCs to SAD candidates, Majithia said the EO ran away from his office on May 14. He said when the Akali leadership approached the SDM – who is the Returning Officer for the election and who even directed the EO to issue NOCs to SAD candidates at a particular time on May 15, the EO did not come to his office. “It is a matter of record that the EO admitted to the Returning Officer that he was under pressure from the AAP government not to issue the required NOCs,” he added.
Later while talking to newsmen, Majithia also disclosed how cabinet minister Sanjeev Arora had called all staff associated with the Industries, Power and Local Government departments to come to office at 5 am on May 16 following which files related to corruption were destroyed one day prior to a CBI raid on his premises in Punjab. He demanded the staff be questioned to get to the bottom of the cover up exercise. He also leveled serious accusations against chief secretary KAP Sinha for permitting Change of Land Use (CLU) to facilitate his family members as well as private developers to acquire land at cheap rates for development. He also highlighted how the AAP government had now hired a private agency for Rs 10.59 crore to delete negative comments on AAP social media handles, including that of chief minister Bhagwant Mann.
