Imphal, Feb 22 NNN: Non-Congress political parties in Manipur are now “utterly confused” as a scheduled visit of a team of top Election Commission of India (ECI) officials to Manipur got suddenly cancelled. The leaders of the political parties expected the ECI team for declaration of re-poll date for several polling stations, which were reportedly rigged.
“The ECI cancelled the visit of its official team to Manipur without any intimation and this has puzzled all the non-Congress parties of the State,” CPI Manipur Pradesh leader Dr M. Nara said while briefing the media after a joint meeting of NCP, CPI, CPI (M), JD (U), Manipur People’s Party (MPP), Manipur State Congress Party (MSCP), Naga People’s Front (NPF) and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) here, which was held to discuss various issues relating to widespread cheating during the January 28 Manipur polls.
“All the political parties were officially informed to attend a meeting to be held form 2 pm to 6:30 pm today where ECI observers and the former were supposed to discuss different issues on poll violation, but they (ECI) suddenly cancelled without giving any reason”, the irritated CPI leader reiterated.
He said in an angry tone that the office of the State Chief Election Officer (CEO) also declined to detail on the cancellation of the visit and that officials there refused to comment in this regard, saying they have no knowledge about it.
During today’s joint meeting, which was chaired by Dr Nara, discussed at length the whole issue on proxy voting in polls to the 10th Manipur Assembly besides the meeting unanimously adopted three resolutions.
It was decided to urge the ECI for invalidation of proxy votes already verified and confirmed in respect of all the polling stations; the ECI should take the political parties in Manipur into confidence to arrive at a consensus and all the Returning Officers (ROs) should be directed to furnish postal ballot accounts, including lists of the postal ballot papers to all the candidates and political parties on or before February 25. The meeting also authorized DR Nara, chairman to submit a memorandum along with the copies of the said resolutions to the ECI.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/political-parties-confused-over-ecs-stand-on-repoll/
