Uchana assembly poll: Cong leader Brijendra for reverification of rejected postal ballots

Time of India

30-05-2025

Chandigarh: While challenging the election of BJP's Devender Atri as MLA from Uchana assembly seat, former Hisar MP and senior Congress leader Brijendra Singh is now focusing on reverification of rejected postal ballots.
Brijendra, a bureaucrat-turned-politician, lost the tightly contested Oct 2024 assembly poll by just 32 votes, when 215 postal ballots were declared invalid by the returning officer (RO) in the constituency.
The election petition challenging Atri's election came up for hearing before the HC on Thursday after which Justice Anoop Chitkara allowed Singh to amend his petition before June 7 and give an advanced copy to his opponent.
The bench has also asked Atri's counsel to file a reply on Brijendra Singh's plea before July 1.
The election petition has now been fixed for further hearing on July 2.
In his plea regarding postal ballot, Singh has mentioned that where the margin of victory is less than the number of postal ballot papers rejected as invalid at the time of counting, all the rejected postal ballot papers shall be mandatorily re-verified by the RO before declaration of result and whenever such re-verification is done, the entire proceedings should be videographed.
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In this regard, he has referred to regulation 14.20.20 of the 'Handbook For Candidate, 2023. Brijendra has mentioned in his plea that the difference between the votes polled by the winning candidate and the petitioner is a mere 32 votes. "A statistical analysis of the postal votes would show that the postal votes which are valid tended to be heavily in favor of the election petitioner. Since the words used in the above-mentioned regulations is 'shall' it means that it was mandatory to comply with the same and non-compliance would ipso facto result in the result of the election being materially affected," he pointed out.
In the election, of the total 1,377 postal votes received, 1,158 were held to be valid and counted, and out of these, 636 votes were polled in favor of Brijendra Singh.
It has also been stated in Singh's plea that the legislative/ executive intent of the said Regulation 15.25 of the 'Handbook For Returning Officer, 2023' and Regulation 14.20.20 of the Handbook For Candidate, 2023, is to immediately and mandatorily reverify the postal votes rejected when the margin of victory is less than the number of postal votes which were rejected. He has submitted that said reverification was never undertaken by the RO despite Kanwal Singh, Pankaj Sheokand, Pradeep and Jai Bhagwan, who were the counting agents of Brijendra Singh, beseeching him to follow the mandatory provisions laid down.