ITANAGAR, Apr 23: The Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has written to the chief election commissioner (CEC), reiterating its demand for fresh polls at the Raibalo polling station under the Palin assembly constituency, owing to violation of election procedure.
On 13 April, election agent Tarh Johny had also lodged a complaint that on 11 April “the entire poll was done by some eight to nine persons.”
“Even the INC (Indian National Congress) polling agent was kidnapped, tortured and later released,” the APCC claimed.
As per the report of the returning officer (RO), on the basis of the diary of the presiding officer (PO) the Raibalo polling station, the video camera which had been returned from the polling station had no recording of any video footage.
During the scrutiny, the INC candidate reiterated his complaint and demanded a re-poll.
The APCC also questioned how there was no video recording of the polling, and said it clearly indicated that the video had been tampered with and deleted after the presiding officer had submitted it to the RO.
As per the report of the Palin assembly constituency RO, on the basis of the diary of the PO of the Raibalo polling station, only 35 to 40 people voted for all the voters.
“In the report, there is a difference in the voting for the parliamentary constituency and the assembly constituency. Total 563 votes were recorded in the EVM for the parliamentary constituency (PC), and 546 votes were recorded for the assembly constituency (AC), as per the presiding officer’s diary. There is no explanation given by the presiding officer for the difference in votes polled for the AC and the PC, but the difference in votes polled in the AC and the PC has been identified by the RO, which is authenticated,” it claimed.
Citing these instances, the APCC said “it is very clear that there is serious matter of vote capturing by blatant violation of election procedure in the Raibalo polling station.”
The party also said a similar case of difference in voting had been found at the Sangram polling station under the Palin AC, where re-poll has been announced.
The APCC requested the Election Commission of India to immediately conduct re-poll at the Raibalo polling station to upkeep “the real spirit of democracy and to restore the faith of the general public in the constitutionality and impartiality of the election commission.”
