Allegations Float Over Election Officials Favouring BJP During Polling In Northeast

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• Apr 27, 2024 | Guriya Khatun

Election agent for opposition Congress candidate A. Bimol Akoijam seeking the Inner Manipur Lok Sabha seat, H. Suresh Sharma, revealed the first occurrence. 

Digital Desk: In at least two cases in the northeastern states, there have been accusations that election officials favored the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while senior persons were voting from home.

Election agent for opposition Congress candidate A. Bimol Akoijam seeking the Inner Manipur Lok Sabha seat, H. Suresh Sharma, revealed the first occurrence. Alleging "undue influence exerted by the concerned booth level officer (BLO) of Chingmeirong Manning Leikai in Imphal," Sharma wrote a written protest to the district election commissioner on April 7.

Sharma's complaint states that the BLO allegedly told a ninety-three-year-old Chingmeirong Maning Leikei, Manipur, voter to cast his or her ballot only for the BJP candidate Th. Basanta Singh, who was designated as Sl. No. 2. The elderly voter was allegedly promised financial incentives by the BLO to support the BJP candidate.

Returning officer Th. Kirankumar opened an investigation after the complaint on April 8 and stated that there had been a "serious violation with regard to enticing aged voters." The district election office chose to replace the officer in charge of senior citizen postal voting even though they discovered that the complaint lacked hard proof against the BLO.

A same event was reported in the Tinsukia district of Assam when discrepancies were found in the home voting procedure using postal votes in the 82-Doomdooma Assembly Segment under the 12-Lakhimpur HPC.

During a news conference on April 7, Swapneel Paul, the district election officer and district commissioner for Tinsukia, revealed to the media that although a polling crew had been hired for house voting, disparities had been discovered in the use of counterfoils.

Following the event, the poll workers and the micro-observer involved in the incident were disqualified from performing any election-related tasks in the Tinsukia district for the upcoming general elections.

The voting date is set for April 19, 26, and May 7 in the northeastern states.