New Delhi, Feb 28: Even while political parties submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission of India against widespread malpractices in the recently held Manipur Assembly election, a delegation of 10 political parties today has expressed hope that the poll panel is likely to conduct another around of repoll in those areas where such practices have been detected.
Speaking to mediapersons in press conference here, representatives of the newly floated People Democratic Front, a amalgamation of 10 political parties in Manipur, claimed that though the ECI has not given any assurance to their demands of repolls, the poll panel has agreed to conduct repoll in certain areas where wide scale proxy voting is being detected. The ECI also assured that action will be initiated on the postal ballot papers.
Nationalist Congress Party chief and chairman of the PDF, Radha Binod Koijam said that they have submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission of India highlighting the “serious irregularities detected by the ECI itself” on complaints from various quarters in the recently held election to the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly and urged the ECI to declare invalid ballots cast by proxy voters.
The former chief minister said the delegation held a meeting with the Election Commission on Tuesday to discuss “proxy voting as were distinctly evident from comparison of photos of persons, who really cast the vote and those of the genuine electors as on the electoral rolls” and “postal ballot papers issued surreptitiously to persons, who were not actually on election duty.”
CPI leader M Nara said the ECI has introduced the rule of photographing every elector at the time of casting of vote for the first time in the electoral system in the country during these elections but if it allowed such continued malpractices and started counting the votes without taking into account the true voice of the people, it would be a mockery of democracy. He also expressed surprise over the detection of one person casting vote 76 times, which passed the notice of the officials in charge of the polling stations.
He also urged the ECI to look into the contention that more than 99 per cent voting took place in some hilly areas which is practically impossible.
The press conference was represented by members of the nine political parties except the Congress and NPF. Kh. Devbrata, MSCP; Ksh Santa, NPP; Morangthem Tombi Singh, JD(U); Moirangthem Nara Singh, CPI; Ms Kim Gangte, AITC; Dr NC Luwang, MPP; RB Koijam, NCP and Sh Shantikumar Sharma, BJP, participated.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/repoll-likely-in-manipur/
