Parties for invalidating proxy votes
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, February 27 2012:
In a bid to draw the attention of the Election Commission of India to 'the need to exclude postal ballots reportedly issued in illegal manners' as well as the proxy votes detected during photo comparison from counting, supporters of ten different political parties staged a protest demonstration at Keishampat Lairembi Community Hall today.
Leaders of the ten non-Congress parties claimed that the protest demonstration was staged to create mass awareness about the possible ramifications of electing representatives through illegal and unfair means, and also to draw attention of the ECI.
Even as all the non-Congress parties put faith in the ECI's indication to hold re-poll after large scale election malpractices and a huge number of mismatching photographs were detected, the political leaders cautioned that ECI would be making the whole process of election a comic tragedy if the votes already identified as proxy are included in counting.
Questioning why the proxy votes should not be invalidated even after large scale election malpractices were confirmed, they asserted that the ECI would be only denigrating democracy if the votes are counted without rectifying the lapses and errors.
Questioning the silence of the ECI to their demand for invalidating bogus votes, they warned that the process of election would become the root cause of an all pervading corruption if the same process cannot be conducted in a free and fair manner.
They further demanded that presiding officers responsible for proxy voting and other malpractices should be penalised according to law.