ON March 30, a delegation of the CPI(M)’s Jharkhand state committee, led by its secretary G K Baksi, met the chief election commissioner V S Sampat, at the Administrative Training Institute at Ranchi. It was part of the series of meetings scheduled by the commission to meet the representatives of different political parties independently. The memorandum submitted by the CPI(M) delegation invited attention of the commission and asked for its intervention on the following issues. 1) Concerned returning officers should ensure the issuance of election duty certificates (EDC) or postal ballot papers, as the case might be, in proper time to enable the large number of voters appointed for election duty, to cast their vote. 2) Proper information must be communicated by the concerned authorities, regarding the issuance of EDC to the police personnel, drivers, conductors, cleaners of vehicles, persons engaged in video photography or photography and in other jobs related to elections. 3) Proper steps must be ensured to curb the use of money power and muscle power. 4) Proper guidelines regarding the use of flags, banners, posters etc, in the existing party offices of the concerned political parties, must be given to the concerned officials of the commission at the district, subdivision and block levels. The delegation also drew attention of the commission to the anti-worker steps being taken by different managements, including the curtailment of existing benefits of the workers. A separate memorandum was also submitted to the commission, protesting an order of the regional provident fund commissioner, Jharkhand, dated March 11, 2014, for cancellation of the benefits enjoyed by the workers of Heavy Engineering Corporation, a central public sector undertaking, since 1967. The CPI(M) delegation demanded that the commission should intervene and maintain the status quo in view of the violation of the model code of conduct.