Odisha rural polls: BJP alleges counting manipulation in 34 seats, to move HC

The BJP’s allegation came hours after the State Election Commission announced that the party had won 297 seats.

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BJP’s Odisha unit on Sunday said it will move the Odisha High Court against the BJD for allegedly “snatching away” 34 Zilla Parishad seats from it by manipulation during counting. The BJP’s allegation came hours after the State Election Commission announced that the party had won 297 seats. The party claimed its tally should have been 331.
The state poll panel, which had not been able to announce all the results Saturday evening, on Sunday announced the results of all the 846 Zilla Parishad seats that went to polls between February 13 and 21. It said the BJD won 473, while Congress bagged 60. The BJP, which won majority in eight districts, is likely to add four more districts to its tally in alliance with non-BJD parties.

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“According to reports received by us after counting, our party had won in 36 Zilla Parishad seats by small margins. The BJD made all attempts to snatch those 36 seats from BJP… At several places during counting, BDOs and Collectors for all practical reasons acted as agents of the ruling party… Therefore, we have decided to move the HC regarding 34 seats where we have information that there was manipulation,” said BJP general secretary Prithwiraj Harichandan.

On February 21, when the results were unofficially announced, the BJP was reported to have bagged 306 seats, an eight-fold increase in its 2012 tally.

“At several places, permission for recounting was not granted. Recounting was done in certain specified polling booths. At many places, they even refused to examine invalid votes. They have clearly tried to get BJD candidates elected wherever BJP candidates had won by small margins of 10, 15, 25 votes,” said Harichandan.
In Jajpur district, locals demanded a probe claiming that a candidate who had polled large number of votes was declared defeated as 82 votes were rejected during recounting. In Bhadrak district, the sarpanch candidate of Palasahi grampanchayat, Sangita Mohanty, said the presiding officer had turned down her just request of recounting.