Over Rs 100 cr worth of cash, drugs, liquor seized as Bihar elections, Assembly bypolls approach

Bihar will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11

The Election of Commission of India (ECI) on Monday said enforcement agencies have confiscated illegal cash, liquor, drugs and other freebies worth more than Rs 100 crore from poll-bound Bihar and other states where assembly by-elections are due to be held.

As of November 3, over Rs 108.19 crore worth of illicit inducements, including Rs 9.62 crore in cash, liquor worth Rs 42.14 crore (9.6 lakh litres), drugs worth Rs 24.61 crore, precious metals worth Rs 5.8 crore and other freebies worth over Rs 26 crore have been seized from different states and union territories, the ECI said in a statement.

Bihar will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and 11. Voting for assembly bypolls in eight constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Punjab, Telangana and Rajasthan will also be held on November 11.

Counting of votes for the assembly and bypolls is on November 14.

As many as 824 flying squads have been deployed across Bihar to ensure that the complaints reported on C-VIGIL are attended to within 100 minutes, the Election Commission informed.

C-VIGIL portal is a web based platform developed for the officials to respond over all the cases reported by the citizen. It empowers citizens to report Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations such as bribery, free gift, liquor distribution, and playing loudspeakers beyond the permissible time during the elections. By using a simple mobile app, the citizen captures a live photo or video.

It also said it has directed all the enforcement authorities to strictly monitor and combat movement of cash, drugs, liquor and other inducements during elections.

“The Commission also stressed that the enforcement authorities should ensure that ordinary citizens are not inconvenienced or harassed during the checking and inspection for the enforcement of these directives,” the statement read.