Lagatar24 Desk
Dumka, Nov. 13: Deoghar deputy commissioner (DC) cum district election officer (DEO) Manjunath Bhajantri has submitted his reply pertaining to the explanation letter issued to him by the Election Commission (EC) pertaining to the lodging of series of FIRs against Godda BJP MP Nishikant Dubey for the latter’s alleged conduct of violating the code of conduct during the bypoll of Madhupur assembly constituency held in April this year.
The EC had through a letter dated November 3, 2021 to the chief electoral officer CEO of Jharkhand sought explanation from Bhajantri on various issues, including the delay of over six months of the completion of the bypoll in lodging the FIRs and issuing verbal orders to the two block development officers (BDOs) to lodge the FIR in police stations of their respective areas of jurisdiction and lodging FIRs in a police station where the code of conduct was actually not enforced.
Altogether five FIRs were lodged against Dubey in different police stations of Deoghar district by respective BDOs on October 24 including one in Sarath police station which does not fall under the Madhupur assembly constituency where the code of conduct was not effective.
Meanwhile, the Godda MP on Friday claimed that the DEO Deoghar has admitted to his mistakes while submitting his reply to the EC.
In order to establish his point Dubey has uploaded the last paragraph of the DEO’s reply in which the latter has written that “the undersigned humbly submits unconditional apology for any inadvertent mistakes and humbly requests the Hon’ble commission to free the undersigned from the explanation”.
Bhajantri, on the other hand, has claimed that he still sticks to his stand over the FIRs against Dubey and that he has submitted whatever was sought by the EC regarding the matter.
“So far as the contents of the concluding paragraph of my reply to the EC is concerned it is a common protocol to seek apology for any inadvertent mistakes which may or may not have happened in lodging the FIRs against the Hon’ble MP,” Bhajantri said.
“I am surprised witnessing an IAS officer (Deoghar DC cum DEO) submitting annexures of my activities which took place in June after a couple of months of the Madhupur bypoll, to the EC to establish his points pertaining to the explanation issued to him,” Dubey said, adding such an act can nothing be dubbed but a childish one.
