Haryana Rajya Sabha polls: EC invites candidates to watch footage of voting

CHANDIGARH: A day after the visit of 3 member team to Haryana assembly, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday has allowed the three candidates of Rajya Sabha polls see the video recording of entire election process held last Saturday.
According to the information, returning officer and secretary of Haryana assembly R K Nandal has conveyed the same to the candidates Union minister Birender Singh, Rajya Sabha MP Subhash Chandra and R K Anand, the Congress and INLD supported candidate who too has petitioned to the ECI after polls.
The screening of the video footage would be held on Thursday. Except for the candidates and ECI representatives, none of the electors as well as representatives of any political party would be allowed to enter the premises where screening will be held.
"The screening will be held at 11am. We have made arrangements for the same,’’ confirmed the assembly official.
On Tuesday, a three member team headed by CEO Vijay Singh Dahiya had visited the assembly premises to start the probe into allegations of manipulations during the polling for one seat of Rajya Sabha held on June 11.
Besides taking records related to elections into the possession, the visiting team had also questioned the returning officer RK NAndal as well as staff associated with polling.
As many as 14 votes, which are believed to be of the Congress MLAs were declared invalid. 12 votes were cancelled as the ink pen used on the ballots was found to be different from the one sent by ECI. One vote of Bhupinder Hooda was cancelled as It was found blank while vote of Randeep Surjewala was cancelled as he showed his ballot paper to Kiran Choudhary.
This had helped BJP supported candidate Subhash Chandra to defeat Congress and INLD supported candidate R K Anand, kicking off the war of words between the three political parties.
While INLD accused Congress party as well ex CM Hooda of manipulation to help Chandra. At the same time Congress had accused the government as well as staff involved in poll process for creating a mess.