JOIN USVidarbha-based farm activists have demanded re-poll in Maharashtra after Election Commissioner H S Brahma tendered an apology with regard to lapses in the electoral lists.
Talking to Deccan Herald over phone from Nagpur, Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti leader Kishore Tiwari said: “It is ridiculous that the election commissioner just apologises. The right way is to order a re-poll in all the 48 Lok Sabha seats and suspend electoral officials, including Chief Electoral Officer Nitin Gadre.”
Elaborating over the lapses, Tiwari averred that the blunder “in all likelihood will have a major impact on the results of the 2014 elections, and moreover, it is an infringement of the right to vote”.
Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, reacting to these lapses, expressed concern and assured the media that he would take up the issue with the chief election commissioner (V S Sampath).
Earlier, however, Chavan had wryly remarked that while “people check their tickets confirmation on railway sites and flight status before embarking on a journey, as a voter they could have checked their names too, well before the polling day”.
Meanwhile, Brahma assured that the missing names would be included before the Maharashtra Assembly elections later this year.
State BJP chief Devendra Fadnavis, reacting to the EC apology, told electronic media that there were reports that private BPOs entrusted with the work of electoral roll revision “were charging money for selective deletions so that it benefits a particular political outfit”.