Guwahati: Accusing widespread anomalies in the voting process as well as multiple vote casting and booth capturing, Indian National Congress (INC) candidate for Karimganj parliamentary constituency Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury on Sunday has appealed to the Returning Officer (RO) for a re-poll in the constituency.
Choudhury lost the LS polls to BJP’s Kripanath Mallah by over 18,000 votes.
Mallah got 5,45,093 votes compared to Choudhury’s 5,26,733 votes.
In a letter addressed to the Returning Officer, Karimganj, the Congress candidate stated, “On the date of polling, i.e., on 26.4.2024, there have been widespread anomalies in the voting process like multiple vote casting, booth capturing, threatening voters not to cast their votes, etc. in my favour. The same was immediately notified to the ECI, and acknowledgement was received as well.
“However, nothing was seen to have been done in this respect, and the offenders and violators belonging to the BJP party carried out the said illegal activities without any check, and neither you nor the Zonal Magistrates nor the Police Authorities took any steps to curb this rigging and forceful derailment of the voting process, contrary to the guidelines of the ECI. That be that as it may be, on 25.5.2024, the ECI declared the actual number of votes polled, which stood at 11,36,536.”
He further added, “During the counting of the North Karimganj Constituencies, the control unit of the EVMs containing the actual number of votes was also not properly displayed to our agents, for which there was an abnormal declaration of votes against me, and despite the requests of our counting agents, they were ignored, displaying a very unfair and biased attitude of your officers engaged in the counting process”.