Observers perplex political parties

Statesman News Service

MALDA, April 23: Not only the CPI-M, even leaders of other parties, including the Congress, are vexed over the present election observers’ random policy of appointing polling personnel for electoral booths.It was learnt that election observers are averse to allowing teachers to go for poll duty based on the list forwarded by political leaders.The observers have sought clarification on the teachers’ involvement in direct politics and on their receiving a salary from the government exchequer. The observers have questioned the teachers’ service conduct rule in this regard. The election observers have exempted teachers from poll duty after they submitted their applications through political leaders.Reportedly, political leaders are now perplexed over how to appoint these teachers, who are also their polling agents. The observers have decided to conduct a training programme for selected teachers as poll personnel.The district election officials, too, have informed political leaders to attend all political meetings convened by the observers here. The latter said election officials would never accept the teachers’ list from political leaders for fear of being exempted from election duty.They said that after finalisation of the poll personnel’s list, teachers would be provided to them as polling agents.Mr Masidur Rahman, vice-president of the Malda district Congress, and the chief election agent of the late MP, ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury, said: “How can we appoint polling agents? Is it possible to appoint polling agents finalised by the observers?An election official facing the ire of Congress leaders instructed them to bring the matter to the notice of Mr Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, Union I&B and parliamentary affairs minister

700 voters not on list

Statesman News Service

MALDA, April 23: Names of at least 700 genuine voters of the English Bazaar Municipal area have been deleted from the final electoral rolls, the Congress candidate for English Bazaar, Mr KN Choudhury, alleged today. Mr Debapriya Saha, the election agent of Mr KN Choudhury, also alleged that despite holding electoral photo identity cards (Epics), many voters did not find their names on the final voters’ list. “Discrepancies in the voters’ list were detected as the name and photo of a particular voter did not match,” Mr Saha told reporters. Citing an example, he added: “At least 12 voters of Ward No 10, who were present during the hearing, were not listed in the final voters’ list.” He also showed the names of at least 30 dead persons whose names figured on the list despite a complaint having been lodged earlier. Again, some names figuring on the provisional list had been deleted in the final one. Mr Saha said: “It is surprising that none of our pleadings was upheld by the Election Commission.” A door-to-door survey had not been conducted in some of the wards of English Bazaar Municipality. He alleged: “We can hardly consider it a slip on the EC’s part; rather, the names of these voters were deleted at the behest of some state government employees from the CPI-M-led Coordination Committee. We will lodge a complaint with the state electoral officer, apart from the district authorities.”