NCP, BJP press ECI to count votes sans proxy
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, February 14 2012:
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have separately urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to count the votes of the recently held Manipur State Legislative Assembly Election, after nullifying all the proxy votes instead of conducting re-poll.
Addressing a press conference at its office at Thangmeiband today, Radhabinod Koijam, President of NCP, Manipur State Unit, observed that the veracity of the complaints lodged over proxy voting during the recent election have been clearly revealed in the photo verification exercise carrying out in the presence of Special Observers deputed by ECI for the purpose.
He pointed out that there were cases of proxy voting in six polling stations of Saikul A/C where the voters were not allowed to exercise their franchise but one single person cast the vote 1000 times.
In Wabgai A/C, there were 2000 to 2500 cases of proxy voting.
So,it would be useless to conduct re-poll in these polling stations.
The best way is to declare all these votes as invalid and start counting of the valid ones at the earliest.
Meanwhile, in another press conference, Prof Tiken, President in-charge of BJP, Manipur State Unit, contended that the problem of proxy voting could not be solved by re-poll.
It would be a wise decision not to conduct re-poll and carry on with the counting process after discarding all the invalid votes.
Prof Tiken further observed that BJP believes that the solution could only be brought by declaring all the proxy votes as invalid and count the valid ones; as such the party has lodged a complaint with the ECI in this regard.
The leaders of BJP have also met the officials ECI and discussed the matter, he disclosed.