Rajya Sabha elections: Haryana impartial’s vote validity to face judicial problem

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The final chapter within the Haryana Rajya Sabha election saga is but to be written. A photocopy of a poll paper purportedly of an Independent MLA is doing the rounds in Congress circles. This MLA marked his vote in favour of Independent candidate Kartikeya Sharma who was later declared elected.

What was fascinating on this poll paper was that the voting mark was not discovered within the prescribed field however subsequent to Sharma’s identify. Sources mentioned Congress will problem the validity of this vote. Its authorized staff is huddled collectively to arrange a petition, which shall be filed in court docket on Monday.

The petition reportedly will demand the rejection of the Independent’s vote. It might alternatively search a ruling declaring celebration MLA Kiran Choudhary’s rejected vote as legitimate. Sharma had edged previous Maken on the premise of the second choice votes. His margin of victory is so skinny that if the court docket rejects the Independent MLA’s vote, Maken will win. Sources mentioned Kiran’s vote was rejected as a result of she had put a tick mark in entrance of Maken’s identify as an alternative of writing the number one within the field alongside.

When the poll of the Independent got here up for scrutiny, Returning Officer Rajendra Singh Nandal is learnt to have identified that the vote was not written within the prescribed field. There are three horizontal packing containers on the poll. First has the identify of the candidate, second the picture, and the final field is for marking the vote. The Independent MLA put the mark ‘1’ within the identify field. 

Nandal reportedly insisted on rejecting the vote, however Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Agarwal and Special Observer Anurag Agarwal, each IAS officers, overruled him. Nandal is a state companies officer. The IAS duo reportedly mentioned that the intention of the Independent was clear, to which Nandal mentioned Kiran’s intention, too, was equally clear. The query, Nandal reportedly mentioned, was whether or not the choice was marked in a prescribed method or not.