IMPHAL, Feb 20: The Election Commission of India is all set to conduct re-poll in polling stations in Manipur where photo anomalies have been detected despite the demand for invalidating proxy votes instead of repoll by non-Congress parties, according to informed sources. Meanwhile, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer has submitted its findings on the photo comparison to the Commission today.
Talking to IFP the Joint CEO N Praveen said, the team of ECI special observers headed by Sunil Gupta, CEO of West Bengal is arriving Wednesday to examine the findings of the CEO Manipur. After detail examination of the same, the team will submit its report to ECI which will in turn take a decision.
When asked about the possibility of repoll Joint CEO Praveen said, it is the prerogative of the Commission, while refusing to divulge details of its findings.
Meanwhile, speculations are ripe about possible repoll in more than 100 polling stations mostly in hill areas in March 1 or 2. The speculations came after an agency report that the state election had been advised by ECI to prepare for repoll.
Besides West Bengal CEO Sunil Gupta, the special observers’ team includes an IPS officer DK Pandey from Ranchi (Bihar) and Gaurav Dwivedi, Director of Information Technology, Government of India.
The ECI team is likely to meet officials of different political parties before submitting its report to the Commission.
It may be recalled here that, non-Congress parties in the state has been demanding invalidation of the proxy votes citing waste of money and time as reasons.
With regard to invalidation of bogus votes Joint CEO of Manipur said, invalidation could have been possible if ballot papers were used in this election. But after the introduction of EVMs, it will not be possible to detect or pin down the bogus votes. Till date, no software has been developed to determine that, he added.