Thiruvananthapuram: The election commission rejected the complaint filed by the UDF pointing out that three of the parties had not appointed their polling agents for the ongoing Rajya Sabha bypolls on Friday. The complaint submitted by the UDF resulted in delaying the counting by about one hour. Thus, the counting process which was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. began only at 6 p.m.
Earlier, the Assembly secretary V.K. Babu Prakash rejected the opposition demand that the votes of the CPI, JDS and the NCP should not be counted as they had not appointed their polling agents. The UDF then moved the election commission.
The rule said that each of the members casting their vote should first show it to the polling agent appointed at the respective party’s polling station. The open vote is to avoid cross voting, but the complaint filed by the opposition was rejected saying that it was not mentioned in the election rules that a polling agent must be appointed.
The Assembly secretary also said that voting was the fundamental right of a person and that it was not mentioned in the rules as to whom the vote should be shown if a polling agent was absent. He added there was no such situation where the LDF’s vote would be rejected. The UDF had submitted the complaint as 24 votes belonging to the three parties would get rejected in case their plea was admitted making the elections a tight contest. Otherwise, the elections were an easy walk over for the LDF which had 90 members.
