Poster war through hired workers

INSTEAD OF committed party workers, hired labourers are carrying out campaigning for the candidates contesting municipal elections in the city.

INSTEAD OF committed party workers, hired labourers are carrying out campaigning for the candidates contesting municipal elections in the city.

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One could watch the hired workers on a hand-driven cart (thela) or on a rickshaw moving in the city in the wee hours for pasting the posters on the walls.

Despite the fact that the Election Commission had issued strict directives against putting up posters at public places, on the walls of houses or government office buildings, the candidates have engaged hired workers for putting up posters in all the localities falling under their respective constituency.

Ram Mohan, a handcart, owner said that he was given Rs 250 per hour for putting up wall posters in different localities.

Mohan Singh, another vendor said that he had a contract for putting up 5,000 posters for Rs 8,000. Similarly, many others were engaged in the poster-pasting job. In no case the work was being done free of cost by the party workers. In some cases party workers had taken the contract for poster pasting through dummy “contractors” to fetch handsome amount from their own party candidate.

However, the poster pasting job is not taken up during the day to avoid the wrath of the people whose walls were being defaced spoiled by putting up the posters and also to avoid confrontation with other “poster contractor or worker” over the issue of site and place. Besides, the persons pasting posters were also aware of the penalty they could incur if they were caught red-handed by the municipal authorities or the police.