CPI today demanded disqualification of Congress candidate from Inner Manipur Lok Sabha seat, Thokchom Meinya Singh, alleging large-scale rigging and proxy voting during polls on April 17.
Maintaining that in one polling booth the poll percentage was over 100 per cent, CPI leaders D Raja and Manipur party secretary M Nara Singh, who also contested from the same constituency, submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission here alleging "rampant proxy voting and booth capturing by Congress workers at the instance of Congress candidate in many of the polling booths." While high voting percentage is good, "but when 29 out of 39 polling booths exceed 90 per cent polling that is not normally possible, then questions have to be raised," Raja told reporters.
Nara Singh said repoll was ordered in booth number 31/1 of Thoubal assembly segment on April 22 "only because of the fact that poll percentage was as high as 100.26 per cent." During repoll, there was only 87 per cent polling.
He also claimed that Congress was "openly offering money to agents of other parties to look the other way when proxy voting was being carried out. This is a new feature which has never been seen in Manipur in the past."
The state CPI leader alleged that Congress workers "seized" a polling booth and voted for their candidate. This process was supervised and monitored by the candidate (Meinya) himself for about one and half hours till 4 pm on April 17, he alleged.
Nara Singh said a video of this episode was submitted to the EC and has been uploaded on the 'YouTube'.
He and Raja said the EC should "explore all legal options and disqualify the Congress candidate (who is a sitting MP) and take strong action against electoral malpractices indulged in by the Congress party."
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