Clarion India
PATNA — The Mahagathbandhan constituents in Bihar including RJD and Congress on Tuesday alleged irregularities in the counting process in seats with tight margins for the state assembly.
A delegation of RJD and Congress leaders have also approached the Chief Electoral Officer in Patna over irregularities in vote counting and announcing of the results of the Bihar Assembly elections.
The Election Commission of India (EC), however, denied the charge saying they were going about their duties with all procedures followed impartially.
In the counting of votes for the state assembly polls, the Grand Alliance appeared to make a late charge but fell short of the crucial majority mark in a close contest against the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
According to the Hindustan Times report, Manoj Jha of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) alleged that leaders from the ruling Janata Dal (United) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were “misusing their official power” to delay the handing over of certificates to winning candidates, and thereby leaving the scope for tampering with the final results in the elections held amid the Covid-19 curbs.
The national spokesman of the RJD, Jha, said that the Mahagathbandhan — the RJD, the Congress and three Left parties — was confident of pulling off a victory at the last moment. According to the report he said,“Our strike rate is better than others. The JD(U)-BJP leaders are sitting at the chief minister’s residence. I urge these leaders and the administration that it is their duty to be impartial.”
Randeep Singh Surjewala of the Congress said that in Kishanganj, the Congress candidate won by 1,266 votes. “Now the Congress candidate is being denied a winning certificate,” he alleged.
The Election Commission, however, responded saying there was no wrongdoing of any kind, and that some winning certificates were pending further verification because of the tight margins.
“We have cross-checked with the chief election commissioner of Bihar and the allegations (by the RJD) are found to have been false and are not substantiated. At no place has counting of postal ballots stopped,” said deputy election commissioner Chandra Bhushan, in charge of Bihar, according to the report.
