New Delhi:The Congress plans to provide legal assistance to its candidates, who have doubts over alleged irregularities in the polling or the counting process in their respective seats during the Lok Sabha polls. “The Central War Room received over 100 complaints related to irregularities in the polling and counting process. The 38 State War Rooms received similar complaints at their level. We have provided the list of complaints to the Election Commission,” Sasikanth Senthil, who managed the AICC War Room during the Lok Sabha elections, told ETV Bharat.
“We are ready to provide legal assistance to all those who may need it,” he said. According to party insiders, the legal recourse in all such cases can be availed through an election petition, which has to be submitted by the respective candidates in the High Courts concerned within 45 days of the declaration of the results.
“Many of our candidates have made up their mind to approach the High Courts over poll irregularities. The opposition was very alert over the issue in this election and so was the public. But such an awareness drive is the responsibility of the EC, not the opposition parties,” said Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi.
According to party insiders, over the past days, Congress candidates in several seats, including Ramnath Sikarwar in Fatehpur Sikri and Sadal Prasad in Bansgaon in UP and Anil Chopra in Jaipur Rural in Rajasthan expressed their dissatisfaction over either the polling process or the counting of votes.
“In many cases, the voting process was slow, which caused hardship to the voters, who had queued up in very hot weather at the polling stations. Though this is not an irregularity, we have mentioned it to the poll panel. Further irregularities relate to voters not being able to cast their votes, in the counting of votes and the counting of postal ballots,” a senior AICC functionary said.