’14 polls: Election of Cong leader Dahiya declared void by HC

DAHIYA GOT ELECTED BY WINNING THE RAI ASSEMBLY SEGMENT BY MERELY THREE VOTES AGAINST INDERJIT SINGH OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL LOK DAL

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has declared election of Congress candidate Jai Tirath Dahiya from Rai assembly segment, in October 2014 in Haryana, as void. Dahiya got elected by winning the seat by merely three votes against Inderjit Singh of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).

The high court bench of justice Harinder Singh Sidhu said that it has been proved that nine void votes were cast in favour of Dahiya and two void votes for Inderjit. After the deduction of the void votes from their tally, valid votes polled to Dahiya were 36,694 and to Singh were 36,698.

Challenging the election, Singh had alleged Dahiya won the election because of bogus voting. The bogus voting was witnessed at booth numbers 83, 131, 112, 19, 25, 22 and 24, it was alleged.

Entire record of the election was examined by a registrarrank officer and it came to light that of nine void votes — seven persons cast double votes, two votes were cast against dead persons through impersonation. Dahiya’s counsel had told court that he had resigned from his seat on August 1 and resignation was accepted by the assembly speaker.

However, court observed that the development does not render the poll petition as ‘infructuous’.

The matter will again be taken up on October 14 to examine whether INLD candidate can be declared the winner.