CALCUTTA, January 20: The West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is planning to move the State Election Department regarding the "misuse of unused ballot papers" in the state. The proposed move comes in the wake of a perchance discovery of unused ballot papers, which were being given away as bus tickets. "What is the guarantee that these ballot papers will not be misused during elections?" asked Rahul Sinha, the state general secretary of the BJP. Waving the tickets before mediapersons, Sinha said, "For a long time, we have been trying to tell people that ballot papers are being misused - they are illegally circulated and used for other purposes. This incident just proves our point." An Election Commission rule clearly stated that unused ballot papers must be destroyed, he pointed out. State Election Department officials, while concurring with Sinha, said that ballot papers were usually destroyed under official supervision. However, they refused to comment on BJP's discovery, saying that the party had to lodge a formal complaint first. Meanwhile, Debabrata Basu of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress told The Indian Express that "The complaint is not new and moreover, there is also an element of truth in what they are saying." "In fact, we had this point in mind during our recent meeting with the Chief Election Officer but as this was not in our agenda we didn't raise this issue," added the official. Incidentally, in almost all the elections held till now, Opposition parties have almost always come up with some proof or the other about the "misuse of ballot papers". This time around, the state BJP is the first one to have raised the allegation.
