Panchayat polls are not fought on party basis in Jharkhand but the major political parties are fighting over the elections.

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) announced that it would approach the state election commission on Saturday “to seek its intervention for restraining central ministers from visiting the state for holding review meetings that will obviously influence the upcoming rural polls”.

“The model code of conduct came into effect as soon as the state election commission declared on April 9 that the panchayat polls would be held in the state in four phases next month,” senior JMM leader Vinod Kumar Pandey reminded.

He added that the Union ministers holding review meetings at this stage would “influence the rural polls and, as such, tantamount to violation of the code of conduct”.

“While Union fisheries, animal husbandry and dairy minister Purushottam Rupala already came to the state and held review meetings in Gumla, ministers of state Annapurna Devi and Raj Kumar Ranjan Singh are scheduled to visit other districts soon,” he told media persons at their party headquarters in Ranchi on Friday, adding even other central ministers were also scheduled to do the same in as many as 19 of the total 24 districts of the state.

Holding review meetings with the district authorities on various ongoing projects is a tactic to exert pressure on the machinery that conducts the rural polls under the supervision of the state election commission, Pandey alleged, adding that was why they would seek intervention of the commission and urge it for putting such visits on hold until the poll process was over.

“We have nothing against central ministers visiting the state but the timing of their visit is wrong,” explained JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya who was also present at the press meet and added the ministers should instead wait for about a month as the poll process would be over by then.

“At this stage, only the state election commission can restrain the Union ministers from holding review meetings involving district authorities and uphold the constitutional provision of holding the rural polls smoothly,” he further said.

When contacted, the BJP, however, brushed aside the allegations, adding those review meetings had nothing to do with the rural polls.

“These review meetings are about central funds released to aspirational districts of the country and are part of an ongoing country-wide review process,” BJP state spokesperson Pratul Nath Shahdeo told this paper when asked.

“The JMM is actually trying to divert attention of the people to get rid of its anti-OBC image,” he put a counter allegation.

He added that the Jharkhand government was holding the rural polls without doing the triple test as the Supreme Court had directed for ascertaining the exact number of OBC seats. But instead declared those as belonging to open category as an escape route for holding the rural polls.

“The Jharkhand government could wait for a few months for ascertaining the required number of OBC seats before holding the rural polls as is being done in Madhya Pradesh,” Shahdeo said.