Scrutiny of demands for repoll held
Source: The Sangai Express
Thoubal, April 15 2019:
Considering the demands for repoll at several booths and polling stations in the 1st phase of the 17th Lok Sabha election for the Outer Manipur Parliamentary Constituency (OMPC) on April 11 and the number of complaints received by Returning Officer No 2, OMPC about the alleged malpractices during the polling including EVM capture and booth rigging by anti-social elements, scrutiny on the said complaints was conducted yesterday (April 14) at the conference hall of DC, Thoubal, Haobam Rosita who is also RO of OMPC.
The scrutiny was attended by General Observer, 17th Lok Sabha Election, David Pradhan; Narbu Wangde Bhutia; Police Observer, Pravin Kumar T Padwal; Vinay Kumar Kantheti; Expenditure Observer, Assistant Returning Officer (AROs) of each district; SDOs ; Congress candidate K James; NPF candidate Lorho S Foze; BJP candidate Benjamin Mate and representatives of other political parties.
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During the scrutiny meeting, Congress candidate K James alleged that the polling on April 11 was not conducted in a free and fair manner adding that the armed miscreants were present in most of the polling stations and intimidated the polling agent including polling personnel to rig vote to their preferred candidate.
He further alleged that the presiding officers also ignored his complaint of the malpractices.
Drawing the attention of the observers, he demanded repoll of the 1st phase of OMPC, which he alleged that the polling was carried out undemocratically.
During the meeting, AROs also addressed all the complaints raised by the representatives of the various political parties present in the scrutiny.
After hearing both the complaints of the candidates and the responses of the AROs, the observer maintained that further verification of the various complaints of the candidate with appropriate evidence will be done at CEO office and will announce the repoll date if necessary.