Nagpur: Though Nagpur University finally managed to conduct its long awaited elections for Senate, Academic Council and Board of Studies, the results have come under the scanner following allegations of missing ballot papers.
RTI activist Sunil Mishra has filed a complaint with vice chancellor SP Kane, asking him to immediately lodge a complaint with Sitabuldi police station, as it was a serious breach of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. NU officials disclosed that some voters had taken the ballot papers home, which led to the huge discrepancy in numbers.
When confronted on Thursday, registrar Puran Meshram, returning officer for the election, denied any knowledge of the issue, stating that they were yet to ascertain how many votes were actually printed and received back in the ballot boxes. He also failed to inform on total number of invalid votes in the polls.
On Monday, he reiterated his earlier stand, but refuses to confirm or deny that ballot papers were missing.
He, however, dropped a bombshell that in the polls related to teachers' constituencies in Senate, AC and BOS, over 200 ballot papers were found completely blank. "Most of these blank papers were found in teachers' elections, where there were a large number of voters, over 5,000. They cast their franchise for their known candidate leaving other papers blank."
The registrar further pointed out that such discrepancies were bound to happen owing to large number of voters, particularly in preferential voting system. But there were no discrepancies where number of voters were less, like in principals and management representatives categories.
"We had extremely busy schedule during the elections and then the convocation. Therefore, we couldn't get time to verify how many ballot papers were not received back. I am in Mumbai today for some official work. But we would reopen the ballot boxes to verify number of votes. Till then, it's not appropriate to say anything about the issue," he said.
Meshram, however, didn't rule out the possibility of teachers taking the ballot papers home in their pockets. "We didn't have any monitoring system to check whether they really put the ballot papers in the boxes or took them home. We don't check any voters when they come in and go out. Even the counters were covered, so it wasn't possible for our officials to see what exactly the voters were doing."
Terming the entire issue as a "big conspiracy" to rig the polls, Mishra blamed both registrar and VC for the mess. He has demanded that the entire process be put on hold till investigation is completed. He also threatened to move the high court if NU officials fail to act on his complaint.
RTI activist Sunil Mishra has filed a complaint with vice chancellor SP Kane, asking him to immediately lodge a complaint with Sitabuldi police station, as it was a serious breach of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. NU officials disclosed that some voters had taken the ballot papers home, which led to the huge discrepancy in numbers.
When confronted on Thursday, registrar Puran Meshram, returning officer for the election, denied any knowledge of the issue, stating that they were yet to ascertain how many votes were actually printed and received back in the ballot boxes. He also failed to inform on total number of invalid votes in the polls.
On Monday, he reiterated his earlier stand, but refuses to confirm or deny that ballot papers were missing.
He, however, dropped a bombshell that in the polls related to teachers' constituencies in Senate, AC and BOS, over 200 ballot papers were found completely blank. "Most of these blank papers were found in teachers' elections, where there were a large number of voters, over 5,000. They cast their franchise for their known candidate leaving other papers blank."
The registrar further pointed out that such discrepancies were bound to happen owing to large number of voters, particularly in preferential voting system. But there were no discrepancies where number of voters were less, like in principals and management representatives categories.
"We had extremely busy schedule during the elections and then the convocation. Therefore, we couldn't get time to verify how many ballot papers were not received back. I am in Mumbai today for some official work. But we would reopen the ballot boxes to verify number of votes. Till then, it's not appropriate to say anything about the issue," he said.
Meshram, however, didn't rule out the possibility of teachers taking the ballot papers home in their pockets. "We didn't have any monitoring system to check whether they really put the ballot papers in the boxes or took them home. We don't check any voters when they come in and go out. Even the counters were covered, so it wasn't possible for our officials to see what exactly the voters were doing."
Terming the entire issue as a "big conspiracy" to rig the polls, Mishra blamed both registrar and VC for the mess. He has demanded that the entire process be put on hold till investigation is completed. He also threatened to move the high court if NU officials fail to act on his complaint.
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