Hyderabad : Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy today alleged that the Election Commission (EC) has opened EVMs godown three days ago without informing any political party causing doubts.
Speaking to the media here, Shashidhar Reddy said as per rules, the EC should take up video recording of seal removal and again sealed in presence of Nodal Officer. But the Nodal Officer had left the godown before sealing the EVMs and before closing the godown, he said, and alleged that something going wrong in the godown.
Reminding Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar’s statement made on Saturday that the EVMs were facing technical problems and 25,000 votes were missing while pressing the button wrongly and the problem would be solved within one week, Marri threw a challenge at EC saying that he was ready to prove that 25 lakh votes were missed.
Finding fault with the voter enrolment process taking place in the state, Marri said that the voter enrolment process was taking place in a manner that the democracy was ridiculed. Marri said that the time left for the election was not enough to solve these problems. The elections will not be held smoothly with the wrong voter enrolment process. There was a need to postpone the elections, Marri said and asked the election commission to initiate action against the officers committed mistakes if it wants to work properly and transparently. He alleged that TRS and MIM parties were friendly parties and hence they were not responding to these issues.
He urged the High Court to conduct an ongoing trial on voter list clearly considering all issues. He said that he was waiting to see as to what sort of action the Court will initiate. Making it clear that the Congress party was not against EC and it was ready to work with the election commission. Unfortunately, the election commission was not working properly and the Congress party was stating the same very clearly, he mentioned.
It was not proper on the part of the election commission, which had all constitutional powers, to say that they were not in a position to do some works as technical problems were haunting them, Marri pointed out. He said that the election commission announced election schedule in Telangana state without solving these problems in voter list and the people have several doubts on election commission’s voter list processing.
PCC official spokesperson G Niranjan said that the election commission has to follow some rules and regulations. Unfortunately, the election commission informed suddenly to come to the EVMs godown. “There were labourers present when we reached the godown. There was no Nodal Officer by the time. Nodal Officer left the Godown before sealing the EVMs. They didn’t take up video recording. We are getting several doubts on the election commission’s actions. It will create chaos during elections”, he said. (NSS)
