Joint team to meet ECI officials
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, February 25 2012:
A joint delegation of non-Congress political organisations would be leaving for the national capital tomorrow where they will apprise the Election Commission of India officials for a final confirmation on whether or not numerous cases of electoral mal-practices would be declared as invalid votes and repoll would be ordered.
Presided by NCP Manipur unit president Radhabinod Koijam, leaders of 10 non-congress political parties attended a joint meeting at the conference hall of Hotel Imphal today in which the focus was on alleged indecision of the ECI with regard to several instances of electoral mal-practices such as incongruency during photo comparison of the voters and indiscretion in the allotment of postal ballot papers.
It is said that participants at the meeting, which is the third such congregation of the political parties in the last few days, adopted various resolutions in addition to lengthy deliberation on the ECI not deputing its three-member observers to Manipur inspite of the earlier report that the ECI trio would be arriving to assess the prevailing situation arising out of various complaints on electoral mal-practices.
Besides announcing the resolutions to newspersons, CPI State Council's State Secretary Dr M Nara criticised alleged inaction by the ECI on the electoral mal-practices, complaints on proxy voting as well as on the ambiguous stand of the ECI regarding conduct of repoll, if any.
To confirm from the ECI officials whether detection of proxy voting would be declared as invalid votes and on possibility of repoll, the meeting decided to depute a joint delegation of the political parties which would include presidents of the respective organisations, to new Delhi tomorrow, said the CPI leader.
He also confided that the joint delegation will hold discussions with national leaders on the prevailing situation arising out of the electoral mal-practices.
Another decision taken at the meeting was to stage sit-in-protest at Keishampat on February 27 to demand exclusion of confirmed proxy votes from the counting process and highlight to the general public misuse of postal ballot papers, he said expressing confidence that the protest would fructify in checking electoral mal-practices in future elections.
Joining at the media briefing, Radhabinod Koijam opined that indecision of the ECI inspite of its observers and Manipur Chief electoral Officer confirming anomalies of voters' photos in no less than 523 polling stations is a testimony that the ECI has failed to justify its existence.
Asserting that going ahead with the counting process without rectifying confirmed cases of electoral mal-practices would amount to violation of prescribed norms, the State NCP chief also posed as to what action the ECI would initiate for those polling stations where polling personnel did not take photos of the voters.
Further asking on what ground the ECI is not deputing its observers to Manipur despite earlier report of sending them, he reminded that ECI should be responsible for ensuring conduct of elections in a free and fair manner.
Taking a dig at the ECI's inaction inspite of detecting various anomalies during the photo comparison process, the former Chief Minister said people of Manipur should not be deprived of natural justice.
MPP's Dr L chandramani who also spoke to the media said the ECI would be held responsible for derailing the democratic exercise if it could not initiate relevant action against the cases of proxy voting and misuse of postal ballot papers.
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