Raipur: A decades old poll rule helps polling agents with a mischievous intention of depriving the “hostile” voters of exercising their franchise get away with a meager fine of just Rs 2.
Agents deployed by political parties sometimes misuse the rule to keep the “opposition” voters away, apparently to benefit their own parties in the elections.
The rule provides that if a voter’s identity is challenged, then the complainant has to deposit a challenge fee of Rs 2 with the presiding officer concerned to settle the dispute.
The polling officer concerned then interrogates the voter whose genuineness has been challenged. The election officer also takes help of the revenue officer of the locality to establish the voter’s identity, if he is not satisfied with the voter’s replies.
“The complainant forfeits his challenge fee if his charges are proved false in the investigation. In case, the voter is found fake, then he is handed over to the police,” an officer in the chief electorate office told this newspaper here on Thursday.
“The polling agents in many cases are found to be misusing the age-old rule to harass genuine voters as the challenge fee is too meager to serve as deterrent for such mischief. The rule should be amended to make it stringent in terms of monetary punishment to stop its misuse,” the poll officer said requesting anonymity.
Such disruptive activities have particularly been recorded in rural areas.
On the other hand, there were also instances where fake voters were caught by the polling agents while casting their ballots.
“But, in most of the cases, the fake voters flee from the booth before the police springs into action,” the officer said.
