Our Correspondent
Kohima, May 29 (EMN): The Election Commission of India (ECI) has on Tuesday ordered re-poll for polling station 13- Kubza village at 26 Aonglenden assembly segment in Mokokchung district. The re-poll will be conducted on May 30 from 7 am till 3 pm.
The ECI in a letter to the chief electoral officer Nagaland (CEO) stated: “After taking all material circumstances into account, the Commission hereby declares fresh poll under Sub-Section (2) of Section 58 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 that the poll taken on 28th May, 2018 (Monday) at polling station No. 13-Kubza of 26-Aonglenden Assembly segment to be void and appoints the 30th May, 2018 (Wednesday) as the date and fixes the hours from 7 am to 3 pm for taking a fresh poll at the said polling station.”
Following the receipt of the commission’s letter, the commissioner and returning officer (RO) Motsuthung Patton issued an official notification for the same.
As for 17 other demand for re-poll by different political parties, the CEO’s establishment informed that the respective deputy commissioner (DC) and AROs along with the observers scrutinised each complaint and subsequently did not recommend re-poll to the commission.
In addition to the above, the ECI in its letter stated that there were 10 polling stations where the presiding officers have not cleared from the control unit (CU) the votes cast during mock poll (viz., PS Nos. 6/21, 6/39, 21/19, 28/29, 30/29, 36/26, 45/5, 49/21, 43/49 and 50/37). However, the VVPAT voter slips of the mock poll were stated to have been “taken out, sealed, properly accounted and kept in separate special envelope”, hence, re-poll was not required for said polling stations as counting can be done by counting of VVPAT slips in case of these polling stations.
It highlighted that counting of votes in such polling stations could be done through the following methods: (a) the votes would be counted through VVPAT slips of actual poll, where VVPAT slips of mock poll have not been kept in strong room; (b) where VVPAT slips of mock poll have been kept in sealed envelope in strong room along with EVMs/VVPAT and other material, there is no need to count all the VVPAT slips.
In order to save time and errors, the commission stated that the number of votes polled may be counted from CU, then VVPAT slips of mock poll (kept in sealed envelope) may be counted. And in order to reach the final figure, the number of votes polled to each candidate in mock moll may be deducted from that of CU.
