Tripura Congress moves Supreme Court against EC order

AGARTALA: After CPM, Congress in Tripura has moved the Supreme Court, seeking a re-examination of the Election Commission's decision to hold repolling in just 168 of the 1,679 polling booths in Tripura West - held in the first phase on April 11.
CPM's recontesting MP from Tripura West, Shankar Prasad Datta, filed a case on Wednesday and Congress followed suit on Thursday.
"While hearing the plea by Congress MP Sushmita Dev, the Supreme Court made it clear that only specific allegations would be entertained by the court during the election. Everything else comes under the jurisdiction of the EC," president of Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee Pradyot Kishore Debbarman said.
"With this spirit, we sought the attention of the apex court over the decision of the EC to hold repolling to 168 booths. The returning officer of the constituency had clearly mentioned in his report that election process was vitiated in 433 booths. We want to know how the EC arrived at the figure of 168 and see the video footage of all 433 polling stations ... Since video-recording of the polling process was done with public money, the EC is duty-bound to make recordings public whenever there is a controversy," he added.
The party will also ask the Tripura chief electoral officer to hand over footage for it to present it as evidence to the Supreme Court and place it in the public domain.
The state election authority, meanwhile, has served show cause notice on a large number of polling staff and micro-observers posted in Tripura West for not performing as per expectations, vitiating the election process. "This proves that polling in Tripura West was not conducted in the way it should have been. Allegations of poll malpractice have been established but the EC's order did not seem to reflect this," Debbarman said.
The Centre has reportedly agreed to deploy 15 companies of paramilitary forces during repolling in Tripura West Lok Sabha seat on May 12. With the EC's requisition, the Union home ministry dispatched 11 companies of BSF and four of the CRPF besides, existing police forces in the state to ensure free and fair repoll.