E-Paper
HCBA poll rigged, allege candidates
SEVERAL CANDIDATES, who were unsuccessful in the Allahabad High Court Bar Association (HCBA) polls held on March 2, have alleged that there was largescale rigging and bogus voting in the election. Addressing a joint press conference here on Sunday, Viresh Mishra, Veer Singh, Sadhna Upadhyaya, Rajendra Kumar Pandey, Dr CP Upadhyaya and Chandra Narain Tripathi alias Chandu alleged that Chief Returning Officer Haider Hussain permitted the casting of fake votes in collusion with presidential candidate CL Pandey.
SEVERAL CANDIDATES, who were unsuccessful in the Allahabad High Court Bar Association (HCBA) polls held on March 2, have alleged that there was largescale rigging and bogus voting in the election.
Addressing a joint press conference here on Sunday, Viresh Mishra, Veer Singh, Sadhna Upadhyaya, Rajendra Kumar Pandey, Dr CP Upadhyaya and Chandra Narain Tripathi alias Chandu alleged that Chief Returning Officer Haider Hussain permitted the casting of fake votes in collusion with presidential candidate CL Pandey.
Unfair election practice, rigging and casting of fake votes had resulted in these office-bearers getting elected, who were not real representatives of the genuine practising members of the HCBA. Various representations were made during the polling by Viresh Mishra and Sadhna Upadhyaya, both presidential candidates, to the election authorities, but no action was taken, the lawyers said.
They alleged that despite written objections against distribution of ballot papers at one place in universal view, the CRO did not take any action. The larger booths were kept away from the observers’ view.
Despite numerous objections by the observers that the same persons were repeatedly collecting ballots from remote isolated counters, the CRO and his team were indifferent and unresponsive. Among the persons who repeatedly cast the votes were mostly young boys, who were seen in the High Court for the first time, they said.
They also alleged that a faulty voters’ list was prepared, which contained the names of voters only, without their father’s name or and residential addresses. “ The faulty voters’ list was the main reason for the largescale irregularities’’, they alleged.
“About 2,000 persons contained in the voters’ list are not practising lawyers and about 700 out of these 2,000 are not even advocates and not registered in the Bar Council of UP, but have fraudulently been inducted in the voters’ list and issued identity card by the HCBA’’, they alleged.
They further alleged that the Returning Officers were appointed without due notice to the lawyers about the General House. Viresh Mishra, a candidate, made a complaint for removing CRO Haider Hussain, doubting his integrity, but no efforts were made to pass any positive orders on the complaint.
The request made by the candidates that videography be done so that the identity of the voters may be established, was also rejected by the polling authorities, they alleged.
They jointly alleged that largescale irregularities and voting by outsiders resulted in the election of the current president and secretary.
They warned that if at this juncture, the practising advocates remained silent and suffered the disgrace, it would only embolden corruption. They said that a candidate Chandra Narain Tripathi alias Chandu had decided to file a public interest litigation, which would be in continuation with his earlier writ petition.
