A repoll has been recommended to the Election Commission in the polling station, Chief Election officer of Uttar Pradesh Navdeep Rinwa said in a post on X.
The UP Police on Sunday arrested a Bharatiya Janata Party worker’s son after a video went viral which showed the teenager purportedly voting for BJP eight times in Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad Lok Sabha constituency.
“The person appearing to be voting multiple times in the video has been identified as Rajan Singh, son of Anil Singh, resident of village Khiriya Pamaran and has been arrested by the police,” Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said in a post on X.
The accused was arrested after several leaders of the opposition parties, including Congress and Samajwadi Party, shared the video of the incident on X, Scroll reported.
A case has been filed against Rajan Singh under sections of the Indian Penal Code related to undue influence or personation at an election (171F) and punishment for cheating by personation (419). The police have also invoked sections of the Representation of People Act related to maintaining secrecy of vote (128), misconduct at the polling station (132) and electoral offence (136).
The video shared on X by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday is from Khiri Pamaran village in Etah district of Uttar Pradesh.
The village is part of the Aliganj Assembly constituency, which falls under the Farrukhabad parliamentary seat. Mukesh Rajput, the sitting MP, is the BJP candidate in the constituency. Polling in the Farrukhabad seat took place in the fourth phase of the general election on May 13.
The chief election officer of Uttar Pradesh also said that he has issued instructions to suspend and institute disciplinary proceedings against all members of the polling party. Rinwa also said that a repoll has been recommended to the Election Commission in the polling station.
“Strict instructions to rigorously follow the procedure in regard to identification of the voters have been issued to all District Election Officers of the remaining phases in UP,” he said.
Rajan Singh’s father Anil Singh is the gram pradhan of Khiri Pamaran and is a member of the BJP.
On Sunday, Anil Singh told Scroll that the video misrepresented his son.
“He [Rajan Singh Thakur] was actually voting on the machine when it was being tested in some instances,” he claimed. “In others, he was voting on behalf of mentally and physically disabled voters in the village. That part has been edited.”
However, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday alleged that the BJP wants to “loot democracy” by putting pressure on the administrative machinery.
“The Congress expects from all the officers performing election duty that they should not forget their constitutional responsibility under the pressure of power,” the Lok Sabha MP said in a post on X. “Otherwise, as soon as the INDIA bloc forms the government, we will take such action that anyone will think ten times before insulting the ‘oath of the Constitution’.”
