Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court suspended a circular of the State Election Commission (SEC) announcing ballot papers with ‘Distinguish mark’ rather than arrow cross-mark as valid in the elections for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
The court passed the orders on a House motion moved by the BJP challenging the circular given by the SEC late on Thursday.
The court coordinated that ballots with marking apart from the arrow cross-mark be treated independently and if the number of such votes isn’t higher than the majority, SEC may announce results yet if the number is more than the majority, the outcomes will be subject to court’s final orders in the issue.
BJP moved the court as the counting of votes polled on Tuesday started Friday morning.
On Thursday night, the SEC gave orders after some counting observers looked for specific clarifications during a meeting. The circular read: “During the poll conducted on December 1 in some polling stations, the polling officers provided distinguish mark instead of arrow cross mark for marking on the ballot paper to the voters to cast their vote. Clarification is sought on the validity of that ballot papers during the counting of votes to be taken on 02-12-2020 whether to consider the ballot papers marked with distinguish mark.”
It added that it is clarified that, if the intention of the voter is clear on marking to a particular candidate, that vote can be treated as a valid vote to that candidate since it is the mistake of polling personnel under rule 51(h) of Conduct of Election Rules, 2005.
In the interim, Congress party has also raised its objection regarding SEC orders. It demanded that if ballot paper apart from ‘swastik’ were discovered, counting of votes should be stopped.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee election coordination council convenor G. Niranjan wrote to State Election Commissioner C. Parthasarathi that if any mistakes occurred the same should be brought to the attention of political parties.
The Congress chief said SEC’s unilateral decision was not proper and it has raised questions. Niranjan stated these missteps happened due to the elections being conducted in a hurry.
