The Telangana High Court, on the 4th of December, suspended a circular issued by the State Election Commission (SEC) regarding the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election results.
On the late night of the 3rd of December, the SEC issued a notice and validated ballot paper voting with distinguished marks.
According to the SEC issued circular, ballot papers having ‘distinguish mark’ other than the instrument like arrow cross mark rubber stamp were also valid for counting votes.
The late night circular raised many questions on the fairness of the SEC. Revanth Reddy, a Member of Parliament (MP) of the Indian National Congress said, “When guidelines are very clear on Swastik stamp what made him to issue late night order.” He even alleged the SEC to be a puppet of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Government.
However, the Telangana HC dismissed the issued circular and asked the SEC not to declare the result of any ward where ballot paper has distinguished marks.
It, however, directed the commission to go ahead with the counting of votes and permitted them to declare the result of those wards where subject ballot papers are less in number and cannot impact final results.
The distinguished marks in majority could impact the final results of the GHMC election results. The Court order said, If the number of ballot papers with ‘distinguish mark’ exceeds 100, the final result of that division should be kept pending.
After the Telangana HC’s direction, the SEC officials said the distinguished mark would not have any impact on the results as such marked ballots would be less in numbers.
Meanwhile, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, the President of the BJP in Telangana, criticised the SEC and the ruling Government.
Mr. Sanjay Kumar hailed the Telangana HC orders and sought resignation of the SEC and K. Chandrashekar Rao, the Chief Minister of Telangana by accepting their moral responsibility.
The counting of the GHMC votes for 150 wards is underway.
Stay tuned for further updates of the GHMC election results 2020.
