Himachal Cong chief seeks free & fair return of PBs
Amid controversy over the snail paced delivery, postage, return and missing of sealed postal ballot to around 67k Services and 25000 Election duty staff voters Congress party express deep concern in a press statement issued here today.
State Congress President MP Pratibha Singh urged the Election Commission of India ensure the return of all postal ballot papers. He has also asked the commission to instruct all election returning officers to expedite the work immediately.Expressing concern over the slow return of postal ballots over telephone, Pratibha Singh urged State Chief Electoral Officer Manish Garg to speed up this work. He said that he has received information that despite the postal ballot papers being issued to some employees on election duty, the concerned employees have not received them. Where these ballot papers have gone missing, it should be thoroughly investigated. He said that it should also be completely ensured that there is no tampering with postal ballots in any way.Pratibha Singh said that she is also getting information that some BJP leaders are pressurizing the Returning Officers to vote in favor of BJP by obtaining postal voters’ lists from them, possibly This is the reason why the employees are not taking any interest in casting their vote. He said that in a democracy, any kind of power pressure on the voters is the murder of democracy, so the commission needs to keep a close watch on this whole process while exercising its constitutional rights with full responsibility.
