Opposition parties in Telangana attack CEO Rajat Kumar for Assembly poll defeat

Hyderabad: The Opposition parties in Telangana state are demanding an inquiry against Chief Election Officer (CEO) Rajat Kumar for not conducting fair elections. The Congress and other parties staged a protest against the Election Commission (EC) at Indira Park on Thursday.

The common target of the opposition parties is Mr Rajat Kumar. During the election process last month, the alliance of opposition parties had alleged that Mr Rajat Kumar was behaving like an agent of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).

Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) president M. Kodandaram said, “We have many doubts about the CEO Rajat Kumar. He did not monitor the voters’ registrations and allowed deletion of many voters from the list. Later, he came up with an apology. The VVPAT slips of Jubilee Hills constituency have gone missing. We demand an enquiry on Mr Rajat Kumar. The EC is not able to give reasons for the difference in the total number of votes polled and counted. Never in the history of the country, so many allegations have been raised against the Election Commission.”

The Opposition parties have demanded that the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections be conducted using ballot papers. They said they had doubts about the EVMs and hence, the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails should have been used. 

“The Commission refused to count VVPAT slips. They were counted in states like Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, so why did the they refuse to count them here (Telang-ana state)?” asked TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy.

 He added, “The Election Commission has failed to conduct free and fair elections in Telangana state. The EC had told the High Court that it will present the voting details, but Mr Rajat Kumar has failed to do so. It is proved that there has been huge difference between the total number of votes polled and total votes counted. The EC should count the VVPAT slips in the constituencies where the winning margin is less than 10,000 votes.”