NEW DELHI: The Trinamool Congress has written to the Election Fee urging it to withdraw a latest order that relaxed a rule on the appointment of polling brokers, and alleged that the EC had taken the step to assist the BJP.
In keeping with a March 2009 rule by the EC, polling brokers who’re appointed by the contesting candidates shall should be electors in the identical polling stations or from neighbouring polling stations falling in the identical constituency.
Nevertheless, the availability was amended not too long ago to permit an elector from any a part of an meeting constituency to be appointed as a polling agent.
“The explanation for a similar has been acknowledged to be based mostly on inputs and for the comfort of the candidates. Such reasoning isn’t solely ambiguous in nature but in addition leads us to a conclusion that it has been carried out to assist sure political events, specifically the Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP), as a result of them not possessing the energy to muster sufficient polling brokers,” the Trinamool Congress alleged in a letter to the EC dated March 26. The celebration launched the letter on Sunday.
It claimed that the brand new directions had been made with a “mala fide intention to learn the candidates of Bharatiya Janata Celebration”.
“Such instruction handed by the Election Fee of India simply earlier than the scheduled date of election to happen in West Bengal is unfair, motivated and biased,” it alleged and urged the EC to withdraw the route and restore the sooner rule.
Whereas the primary of the eight phases of meeting polls in West Bengal was performed on March 26, the second part is on April 1. A TMC delegation led by MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay had on Saturday raised the problem at a gathering with Chief Electoral Officer Aariz Aftab in Kolkata.
