All statues of Mayawati and those of elephants in Lucknow and Noida were covered by the Election Commission's deadline of 5pm on Wednesday.
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday ordered the transfer of five District Magistrates (DMs), two Deputy Inspectors General (DIGs) of police and six district police chiefs.
Meanwhile, all statues of Mayawati and those of the elephants in Lucknow and Noida were covered by the Election Commission's deadline of 5pm on Wednesday.
UP's CEO Umesh Sinha informed reporters here that the transfers had been ordered after vetting several complaints about the officials received from several sources. He said that the Election Commission had satisfied itself about the veracity of the complaints before taking the action.
On the other hand, covers went up on about 400 statues in Lucknow and 60 in Noida in keeping with the EC instructions.
The EC had ordered the draping of these statues after widespread complaints that they would afford undue benefit to the ruling BSP in the UP Assembly election. Sources said it had cost about Rs1 crore to cover the statues in Lucknow and about Rs27 lakh in Noida.
UP BSP chief Swami Prasad Maurya has described the EC's order as biased. "The EC is clearly functioning like a puppet in the hands of the Congress," he told reporters in Kushi Nagar in east UP. "This order has put a question mark on the EC's impartiality," he said.
A PIL filed against the EC's order to drape the statues was dismissed in the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday with liberty to file a fresh application.
BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra has said that a weak writ was deliberately filed by the party's opponents only to get it dismissed, thus getting the court's stamp on the EC order.
He said the BSP had nothing to do with the writ. "We will take this issue to the people's court in the elections," he said.
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