Senior BJP leader and former State Assembly Deputy Speaker Rama Chandra Panda described the decision of the State Election Commission (SEC) to hold video-recording of the counting process of votes for the urban local body (UlB) polls on the pretext of free, fair and incident-free election as a mere eyewash and superfluous. He said the actual need is to videograph the voting process in each booth.
Recollecting his experience, Panda said money mafias and antisocial elements are likely to intimidate the voters and to rig the election. While ruling party leaders are provided adequate security, opposition leaders are left at the mercy of antisocials which had never happened in the State, he said.
In spite of repeated representations to the police to provide security cover to some leaders of opposite parties during the campaign, the plea was ignored presumably at the behest of the Chief Minister, Panda alleged. To such sensible issues, the CMO, the district administration and the police as well as the SEC remain mute spectators, he added.
He alleged that the existing rules are designed to favour the ruling party to manipulate the elections as evident from the fact that while the Council of Ministers is formed 24 hours after the general elections, in the election for Chairmen and Mayors of the UlBs, a period of 10 long days is given deliberately to facilitate the money mafias to resort to horse-trading in formation of the councils and corporations.