October 12, 2018:
On Friday, Supreme Court dismissed 2 separate petitions by Senior Congress leaders Kamal Nath & Sachin Pilot that sought the Court directing the Election Commission to provide the draft voters' list in Madhya Pradesh & Rajasthan in text format.
There will be elections for New Government in Madhya Pradesh on November 28 & Rajasthan on December 7.
Congress hopes to remove the ruling BJP from these 2 States in the forthcoming elections, seen as precursor to the Lok Sabha Polls early in the Next Year.
Congress Leaders in their petition alleged that there were a large number of duplicate names appearing on the voters' list and sought the rectification of the error to ensure "free and fair elections."
Kamal Nath in his petition, said that the Court should direct the Election Commission to publish the voters' lists in a "text format as per rules," instead of the PDF format, and redress all complaints related to Electoral Rolls before their final publication.
Senior Congress Leader has also said that Court should direct the Poll Panel to randomly verify the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with votes cast on Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs in 10% of randomly-selected polling stations in every Assembly Constituency.
Their petitions were unsuccessful. Bench comprising of A K Sikri & Ashok Bhushan said,"We have dismissed these petitions."
Kamal Nath has claimed as many as 60 lakh Names on the Voter List in Madhya Pradesh were duplicate.
Senior Advocate Vikas Singh during the hearing, representing the Election Commission, argued that a large number of duplicate entries from the Voters' List were already weeded out even before the issue was taken up by the Congress.
Senior Advocates & Congress Leaders Abhishek Many Singhvi & Kapil Sibal appeared for the petitioners.
Source:NDTV
Picture Source :
