Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 28: NPP chairman Harsh Dev Singh today said that having failed to receive any response from the State Election Commission with regard to the complaints of mass rigging, manipulations, abuse of Govt machinery etc by the ruling party during the last year’s DDC polls, the NPP had filed an RTI application wherein certain startling facts have come to fore.
“While the complaints lodged by the NPP had been disregarded by the ‘Election watchdog’ of the UT of J&K, the reply to RTI application has admitted that there was incongruity in district Udhampur in the number of votes polled on the day of polling and the votes actually found in the ballot boxes in 12 out of the 14 DDC constituencies of the said district. And while there was no difference between the votes polled and votes found in ballot boxes in all other districts as per the reply of SEC, it was district Udhampur alone where such discrepancies had been noticed,” NPP leader said while talking to media-persons here.
While displaying the copy of RTI reply, he revealed that the decision of mixing of votes of various polling stations was taken on December 16, 2020 after the polling process had concluded in majority of the DDC constituencies as revealed in the said reply. He said that the SEC had admitted that no concurrence or consultation was held with the recognized political parties on the subject and the said decision was taken by SEC by overlooking the past precedents and by changing the prevalent practices and norms unilaterally.
The reply has further admitted that a meeting was held by DC Udhampur on 21-12-2020, a day before counting of votes with all candidates/election agents of various political parties except those of Panthers Party. With regard to query raised in the RTI application regarding roofless rooms used for storing ballot boxes, the reply has admitted that the storage of all ballot boxes of various DDC constituencies of District Udhampur was done in several wooden compartments of a multipurpose hall except those of Chenani, Singh said.
He asserted that with all such irregularities having been admitted by the SEC in conduct of DDC polls in Udhampur which remained the centre of controversies even during the said elections, the entire election process gets vitiated and becomes void ab initio.
Calling upon the Election Commission to declare the DDC elections of district Udhampur as null and void in view of disclosures made in RTI reply, Singh said that party would launch massive public awareness campaign against the brazen subversion of democracy and blatant bulldozing of constitutional guarantees in J&K.
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