Assam: Election petition filed before Gauhati High Court against BJP MP

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: An election petition was filed before Gauhati High Court by the Congress candidate Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury from Karimganj Parliamentary Constituency in Assam in the 2024 General Elections which was heard on Monday by Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi. The BJP candidate Kripanath Mallah was declared as the winner with a margin of mere 1.6% votes against the Congress candidate Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury. Senior Advocate Hafiz Rashid Choudhury has alleged that his opposing BJP candidate committed multiple “corrupt practices” both while campaigning as well as on the day of elections, including widespread rigging, booth capturing, voter intimidation through undue influence and bribery, etc and sought for the election to be declared null and void.

The Petitioner’s legal team Convenor Gautam Choudury, throughout the day of the polling, continuously filed complaints with the Election Commission of India (ECI) via email, flagging the specific cases of rigging and booth capturing across 20 polling stations. The Petitioner’s Election Agent had also submitted a complaint on the date of polling detailing the “corrupt electoral practices” of booth capturing detailing the malpractices committed in 31 specific polling stations. The petition alleged booth capturing across 47 polling stations, which constitutes almost double the number of votes than the margin between the 2 candidates.

The petition also raised issues regarding the integrity of the voting process as ECI stated in its voter turnout data that 11,36,538 votes were polled which after adding postal ballots totaled to 11,43,796 votes. However, on the date of counting, total number of votes counted was 11,47,607, thereby resulting in an unexplained additional 3,811 votes having been counted.

In the hearing today, Senior Counsel KP Pathak appeared for the petitioner. The High Court has issued summons to the respondents and has fixed the next date as August 19 highlighting the need to decide the matter in a time-bound manner.

Also Read: Assam: BJP is falling and Congress is rising, says Jorhat MP Gaurav Gogoi (sentinelassam.com)

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