Congress accuses poll officer of favouritism

Vadodara: The city Congress on Sunday accused election officials of subtly canvasing for the BJP in the civic by-polls.
Controversy erupted when some Congress leaders noticed posters pasted at the polling centres in ward number 11 soon after the polling began. The poster in Gujarati language read that voters have the right to vote for only one candidate among all candidates. All India Congress Committee (AICC) member, Rutvij Joshi said that he noticed the posters and took up the matter with the poll officials and also informed his party.

“The word ‘one’ in these posters was in bold letters and highlighted with a box. Now, the BJP candidate’s number in the polling list is one. We complained to the polling officer as we felt that they are supporting the BJP candidate by putting up such posters,” said Shailesh Amin, spokesperson, Vadodara Congress. “We will take up the matter with the central election commission as well,” Amin told TOI.

When contacted, election officer, Mahipalsinh Chudasama said that the posters were kept for voters’ awareness. “In civic polls, people have to vote for more than one candidate but this was a by-poll for just one seat. So, to avoid any confusion, the posters asked voters to select any one candidate. There was no other intention,” Chudasama said. When asked why the posters were removed later, he said, “We wanted to avoid unnecessary controversy over this issue.”

Of the 68,301 voters in ward 11, only 16,508 turned up to cast ballot on Sunday at the 84 polling booths. Election officials said that the total percentage of voting was meagre 24.17 when the polling ended at 5 pm. The by-poll was held as ward 11 sitting councillor Mamta Kale died in March this year.