EC defends delay in Bijepur bypoll

BHUBANESWAR: Even as the BJD and the Congress questioned the delay in issuing notification for the Bijepur bypoll, D N Gupta, the chief electoral officer in the state said on Wednesday the administration is fully prepared to conduct the election.
"Regarding the date for the Bijepur byelection, the date is being decided by the Election Commission of India. They are taking into consideration two important points - availability of VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trail) and the petition filed earlier (by BJD's Prasanna Acharya) pertaining to the 2014 assembly election," Gupta said.

Gupta said since the court case was settled on October 16, the ECI might have been calculating the six-month period from the date of disposal of the case.

The bypoll is due after sitting Congress MLA Subal Sahu died in August. Since Sahu died on August 22, the bypoll process is supposed to get over by February 21, a period of six months as per norms. If the six-month period is taken into account from the date of the settlement of court case, the byelection has to be held by April 16.

On its preparations, Gupta said the VVPAT and electronic voting machines have been procured for the Bijepur byelection and training of government officials has already been started.

"For the 270 polling booths in Bijepur, 20 per cent extra VVPAT machines have been brought so that they can be used in case of any breakdown. First-level check of the machines is underway," Gupta said.

On December 28 the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the dates for the bypoll in three Lok Sabha and two assembly constituencies in Rajasthan and West Bengal. This forced the BJD and the Congress to question the ECI.

Senior Congress leader Narasingha Mishra said the reason for not notifying the date for Bijepur bypoll raises doubts. He said there is growing public suspicion that the BJP-led Centre is pressurising the EC to delay the poll. The BJD too had made similar allegations.

BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma on Wednesday set aside the charges and stated that the party has nothing to do with the election process.