Ranchi, Nov. 28: Major political parties today submitted serious complaints with chief election commissioner Navin Chawla.

“The BJP has taken serious exception to a letter issued by the Hazaribagh deputy commissioner in October, in which he had asked the block development officers and circle officers to ascertain the number of Muslim voters. We have asked why such a direction was issued,” said former advocate-general Anil Kumar Sinha, who led the BJP delegation.

It drew the Election Commission’s attention to recent advertisements by government organisations with pictures of Union ministers.

The BJP also lodged its complaint about how a wrong signal prevented L.K. Advani’s helicopter from landing in Jamtara. Instead Advani landed 100km away in Bengal and thus his public meeting was aborted, Sinha said.

The JD(U) asked for deployment of army jawans at each polling centre and intensive police patrolling to instil confidence in voters. Besides demanding adequate security cover for candidates and star campaigners, it complained that adequate security has not been provided to its Tamar candidate Raja Peter, said party spokesman Pramod Mishra.

JVM(P), too, asked the commission for full security cover to candidates, instead of two policemen per candidate, so that they can freely move and campaign in the Naxalite-hit areas, said JVM(P) senior leader Pravin Singh.

Incidentally, even the state office of Congress was not aware whether the party had sent a delegation to Chawla. The commission had allotted seven to 10 minutes to each political party for discussing their suggestions.