Veteran CPM leader and GMP (Ganamukti Parishad) president Jitendra Chowdhury on Thursday expressed his and his party’s displeasure over the role of State Election Commission as poll conducting institution did not respond to the re-poll requests made by all the opponent political parties—CPIM, Congress and TIPRA Motha. 

“The large-scale rigging that had taken place all across the state during the poll day was not hidden to anyone. The mainstream media reported on these malpractices and apart from that many videos showcasing the events of malpractices”, said Chowdhury adding that it was quite astonishing for the party to hear from the state election commissioner that he had got no such reports from the fields. 

“The state election commission has told us that he has not received any inputs pertaining to booth jamming, manipulation of the poll process and other related malpractices. He has refused to hold any sort of re-poll as the field level reports of SEC are clean”, Chowdhury told a press conference just after having a meeting with the SEC officials. 

“We had expressed our disappointment over the issue and conveyed the SEC that had the re-polls were conducted people’s believe over the election machinery would have enhanced manifold. We were also reported that one highly placed administrative official had directed the poll officials, returning officers and DMs not to ask for fresh elections through messenger and What’s app calls” Chowdhury alleged but did not disclose the name of the official. Lamenting over the role of police, he said, the gravity of the allegations of malpractices had been justified by the Youth IPFT General Secretary Shukla Charan Noatia who had demanded re-elections in 23 select polling booths under Kathalia-Mirza-Rajapur constituency. 

Moving on to the counting, Chowdhury said, in view of the poll day experience, it can be well predicted that attempts would be undertaken by the miscreants to manipulate the counting process too. “we have made some specific demands to maintain peace on the day of counting too”, he said. 

Detailing the demands, he said, “we have urged the SEC to arrange three tier security system encircling the counting rooms deploying adequate number of Central Paramilitary Forces and state police in order to avert any kind of manipulation tactics”. 

The party also requested for videography and installation of adequate CCTV cameras in the counting rooms, appointment of senior IAS and TCS officers as poll supervisors so that any dereliction of duty by officials engaged in counting could invite suspension etc.