Summary:
The representatives of CPI, CPM, TMC, LJP and Nationalist Congress Party also gave their suggestions to the CEC. Anand Madhav from the Congress demanded five ‘pink booths’ in every block to facilitate unencumbered voting by women. PATNA: The JD(U) and BJP representatives on Thursday pleaded separately with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora that the EC’s booth level officers (BLOs) should be provided identity cards and they should deliver the voters’ slips to the individual voters concerned only, and in no situation “in bulk” to others for distribution among the individual voters.The RJD representatives, on the other hand, told the CEC that steps should be taken to make EVMs tamper-proof. Besides, Singh demanded provision of I-cards to BLOs, besides facilitation of voting by the physically challenged people.RJD MLA Bhola Yadav, assisted by the party’s functionaries Chitranjan Gagan and Chandreshwar Singh, told the CEC that the party favoured free and fair election and deployment of paramilitary forces at sensitive booths. The interaction took place in two separate sessions – one involving the representatives of political parties and other with the senior central and state government officials.Representing the JD(U), water resources department (WRD) minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh pleaded with the CEC that the distribution of voters’ slips by the BLOs in bulk had led to irregularities, like the impersonation and bogus polling by the voters.BJP’s election functionary Jay Prakash also made similar demand, and pointed out that the party had submitted specific details of the irregularities to the office of the chief electoral officer in the state..