Didi’s sops not a violation of poll code: EC | India News
New Delhi: Election Commission Sunday said that announcements and policy decisions before the announcement of elections are a prerogative of the office – the Center or the state government. While announcing the schedule for assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry, the panel said the code of conduct, prohibiting any fresh announcement by a government, came into effect only from the time of official announcement of the election date. A reply to the question whether announcements including dearness allowances for state government employees were made by the Chief Minister of Bengal Mamata Banerjee Less than an hour before the EC election schedule was announced, CEC Gyanesh Kumar said, “The code of conduct comes into force after the election is announced, not before.” There have been instances of ruling governments announcing decisions including financial support to beneficiaries just before the code was launched, and opposition parties have often called it a “temptation” to sway votes. On Sunday, several journalists mentioned the Rs 10,000 financial aid extended to women by the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar just ahead of the 2025 assembly elections and the MK Stalin government in TN by depositing Rs 6,550 crore in the bank accounts of over 1.3 crore women till February. Mamata, who is the TMC chief, has announced dearness allowances for thousands of state government employees in X, saying they will “start getting their ROPA 2009 DA dues from March 2026 as detailed in the notification issued by our finance department.” Calling the DA announcement a “joke”, Bengal BJP’s Shuvendu Adhikari told X, “After years of looting state coffers and cheating them blind, this is your desperate last-minute poll strategy? Zero accountability, zero funding, zero distribution… Classic TMC poll drama.”
