EC orders re-poll in 8 Mewat booths

Despite having a high voter turnout of 78 pc in Nuh, not many in Rehna village were able to show the ink mark on their fingers.

Following allegations of large-scale rigging in Mewat when Haryana voted on April 10, the Election Commission on Tuesday ordered a re-poll in eight polling stations. The re-poll will take place on May 15, a day before counting for the Lok Sabha polls. Among others, a polling station in Rehna, the native village of local strongman and Indian National Lok Dal candidate Zakir Hussain, will also go to re-polls on May 15.

On April 21, The Indian Express had reported how despite having a high voter turnout of 78 per cent in district headquarters Nuh, not many in Rehna village were able to show the indelible ink mark on their fingers despite the village having witnessed heavy polling.

In fact, when asked to show their ink marks, most villagers had come up with a variety of excuses to claim that the mark had faded off. Many of them had even showed the wrong fingers to claim that the marks had got erased. There were allegations that some people had cast 40-50 votes each.

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The other booths where the EC has ordered a re-poll are in Bawala (Sohna assembly segment), Tapkan and Majra Bhandgaka (Nuh assembly segment), Banarashi, Nimkhera and Shahpur (Firozpur Jhirka assembly segment) and Thek (Punhana assembly segment).
The decision for re-polls follows a complaint by the AAP.

Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Shrikant Walgad on Tuesday said the “decision of re-polling has been taken on the basis of reports received from the District Election Officer or Returning Officer concerned on the complaints regarding the poll after taking all material circumstances into account”.

AAP candidate from Gurgaon Yogendra Yadav, in a series of tweets, said, “EC has today announced repoll on 15 May in 8 Gurgaon booths while we complained about rigging in 110 on 10 April itself. Last minute repoll in 8 booths might not change results but it is an acknowledgement by EC that rigging did happen here…”

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