Lucknow administration was busy getting clicked only on poll day: SEC

Lucknow: In a rare public outburst, the Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission on Wednesday castigated Lucknow district administration for gross irregularities in voter list in local body polls and singled out DM for the major lapses.

Uttar Pradesh State Election Commissioner SK Agarwal even came down heavily on Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Anil Garg for poor monitoring in preparation of voter list and hinted serious action against Lucknow District Magistrate, ADM and SDMs.

Addressing the media at the end of polling of third and final phase of elections, the SEC said, "Striking off the names from the voter list is nothing less than criminality. The district administration has always been busy getting photographed."

"The initial probe into the irregularities in voter list has been given to Lucknow Divisional Commissioner. Taking action only against the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) is unjustified. This was also the responsibility of ADM and SDMs. If the district administration will not seek clarification from them, we will. The Commissioner has been at the helm in the office for the past six months. The probe will identify whose named were struck down and why," he added.

Also Read: UP civic polls: About 58 per cent voting recorded in third phase

What else he said?

• The same complaint was made from five districts during the 2015 Panchayat elections.
• The probe of the matter had been given to Special Task Force.
• After the probe report arrived, three SDMs were suspended.
• We will again take action against the culprits only after getting the probe report.

What he said about the EVM non-functioning?

• Apart from Lucknow district administration, the officials of all the districts worked really hard.
• A total of 503 machines were reported to be non-functioning during the poll process.
• Out of those, 250 machines were found non-functioning only in Lucknow.
• As per the percentage, 0.7 per cent machines were facing issues across the state.
• Lucknow had 0.3 per cent of those non-functioning machines.

Agarwal further asserted that the winning certificate to the candidates in the civic polls will be downloaded from the official website of the State Election Commission. "The district administration will attest the certificate," he added.

Here are some figures revealed by SK Agarwal during the press briefing:

• Out of a total of 36,797 polling booths, re-polling was conducted at only three polling booths.
• During 2012 local body elections, a total of 16 deaths were registered.
• This year, not a single such incident has been recorded.

Earlier on November 27, SK Agarwal had said, "We have received many complaints of several names missing from the voters' list," adding, "To ascertain if it was intentional or not, we have directed the Lucknow Divisional Commissioner to investigate the matter."