MUMBAI, June 17: Chief Electoral Officer for Maharashtra, Dr D K Sankaran, has ruled out any possibility of malpractice in the biennial elections of Rajya Sabha and Maharashtra Legislative Council to be held today.Nevertheless, he has acted on a letter written by senior JD leader Vyankappa Patki, who feared that the MLAs would resort to unfair means during voting.Patki had alleged that some MLAs might take the ballot papers out of the Vidhan Bhavan, where the polling takes place, and use the same to earn benefits from the candidates. It was said that some voters might put in blank papers in the boxes and barter the ballot papers with the candidates.However, Shankaran ruled out such tricks and said "there is no such possibility at all. Looking at the socio-political culture of Maharashtra, I do not think the MLAs will resort to all these measures. Still, we have made stringent arrangements to check any such incident. An MLA will have to insert the ballot paper given to him in the ballot box kept infront of the Returning Officer (RO) or his assistant. The ballot paper will be stamped and signed by the RO on the back and he will check it before the MLA inserts the ballot paper in the ballot box."He was addressing a press conference in the Central Hall of the Vidhan Bhavan this afternoon.The elections will begin at 10 am and will last till 2 pm, Sankaran said. While 287 MLAs will exercise their right to franchise for the Rajya Sabha elections, 288 will do the same for the MLC elections, he said.While 7 candidates are contesting the RS elections, 13 are in the fray for the MLC elections. "A voter will have to write 1 in front of the candidate he prefers the most (first preference vote). It is also mandatory for the voter to give numbers to all the candidates depending upon his preference. If he fails to do it, the vote will be considered invalid," Sankaran said.Each vote is equivalent to 100 votes. The total votes will depend on the number of valid votes. The minimum votes required for acandidate to get elected, called as quota, will be decided by dividing the total votes by number of vacant seats and adding 1 to the quotient.The party wise voter position is Congress-78, Shiv Sena-75, Bharatiya Janata Party-66, Janata Dal-10 (Shivaji Kavekar can not vote following a High Court directive), Peasant's and Worker's Party-6, Samajwadi Party-4, Communist Party of India (Marxist)-3, Maharashtra Vikas Congress-1, Nag-Vidarbha Aandolan Samiti-1 and independents-44.
