Political parties call on CEC
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, February 27 2012:
A joint team of ten different political parties barring Congress have called on Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi twice today and urged him to exclude proxy votes as well as postal ballot papers which were reportedly issued in wrongful manner from the counting.
In his response, the CEC informed the joint team that identification of proxy and bogus votes would face many technical difficulties besides being a very time consuming process.
As such, it is likely that certain polling stations may go to re-poll on March 3 .
Ahead of their meeting with the CEC, the joint team of political leaders who left Imphal yesterday called on leaders of different national political parties and apprised them about the mismatching photographs as well as the reported cases of misuse of postal ballot papers.
According to information received from Delhi, the joint team had a meeting with CEC Quraishi from 1 pm to 2.30 pm today.
They apprised the CEC about misuse of postal ballot papers, mismatching photographs as well as the electoral malpractices seen on the polling day.
Leaders of the ten political parties urged the CEC to exclude bogus and proxy votes as well as the postal ballot papers issued in illegal manner from the counting.
After listening to the complaints and appeals of the political parties, SY Quraishi categorically stated that it would not be technically feasible to identify and reject the bogus and proxy votes as the date for counting is not far away.
In place of going for the cumbersome and technically difficult task of identifying bogus votes, the CEC proposed re-poll in all polling stations where maximum case of proxy voting were detected.
After their meeting with the CEC, the political leaders held another meeting amongst themselves at Manipur Bhavan and discussed about the CEC's proposal and suggestions.
Again, representatives of the ten political parties called on the CEC for the second time at 5 pm today.
It is reported that the joint team received positive response from the CEC during their second meeting.
It is expected that the CEC would come up with a final decision before noon tomorrow.
After hearing the CEC's decision, the team would put forth their comments and wishes before leaders of national political parties tomorrow afternoon.