HC issues notices to Wardha, Buldhana MPs

Nagpur: After other MPs from Vidarbha, it’s now turn of Wardha representative Ramdas Tadas and Buldhana MP Pratap Jadhav to receive notices from the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court.
A single-judge bench of justice Vinay Deshpande on Friday issued notices to both MPs over election petitions filed by losing candidates from Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), asking them to reply within four weeks. Returning officers-cum-collectors from Wardha and Buldhana districts along with Election Commission of India (ECI) were other respondents, who also received notices.
The cases were filed by Dhanraj Wanjari, who contested from Wardha, and Baliram Sirsikar, who fought from Buldhana. Through counsel Nihalsingh Rathod, both challenged victories of Tadas from BJP and Jadhav from Shiv Sena.
According to the petitioners, the ECI and collectors ignored big difference of votes in the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and that of Form 17, which is register for voters. In one of the booths, there is a difference of 1,380 votes in both counting, Wanjari claimed. Similarly in Buldhana, there is a difference of 383 votes in EVMs and Form 17, claimed Sirsikar, an MLA from Akola.
Like other petitioners from their party, Wanjari and Sirsikar have come up with same contentions of use of faulty EVMs during the polls that led to their defeat. They also claimed large-scale deficiencies in the entire election process and gross violation of ECI’s rules by the poll officials on duty.