The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday listed a petition for hearing, which sought setting aside of the elections to Mayor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on grounds of fraud and forgery.
The petition was filed by Kuldeep Kumar, the joint candidate of the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) against the election of BJP nominee Manoj Sonkar.
The Court allowed mentioning of the case and ordered its listing on Wednesday.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Manoj Sonkar was declared elected as the Mayor on Tuesday after he bagged 16 votes against the 12 votes received by the Congress-AAP candidate. Eight votes were rejected in the process as invalid.
The petition alleged that in complete departure of the practice and rules, the Presiding Officer refused to allow the nominees of parties to monitor the counting of votes.
It said the Presiding Officer in most flimsy manner addressed to the House that he did not want any assistance from the members nominated by the parties contesting the election and he will count the vote himself. The voices were raised by the Aam Admi Party and Congress but their requests were not heeded, but surprisingly the Deputy Commissioner, Respondent No.2 and the Prescribed Authority, who was also in the same capacity in the last year’s election remained mum.
The plea further stated that there were three baskets in front of the Presiding Officer – two for the candidates of the AAP-Congress alliance and BJP and one for invalid votes.
As per the plea, videos from the election reveal that the Presiding Officer shuffled the votes from one basket to another only with a view to create a confusion during which he completely compromised the election process by forgery and tampering.
It alleged that the Presiding Officer against all the rules and regulations announced the result that eight votes had been declared invalid but did not utter a single word for the invalidity of the votes and the party to whom these invalid votes were polled.
The actions of the Presiding Officer were nothing but murder of democracy and democratic system for elections.