Clerical error forces re-poll recommendation for 13 panchayat wards in East Sikkim

GANGTOK, 05 Nov: A clerical error brought about enough of a storm at the TNA auditorium here where counting of the panchayat poll results was taking place today. A stand-off between district administration officials and a number of Independent candidates which lasted for nearly 2 hours was finally resolved with the DC, East, D Anandan, giving in to the demand for re-polling and results of 13 panchayat wards withheld. Officially, the final call will be with the State Election Commission, but with the Returning Officer [the DC East] making the recommendation, a formal announcement is only a formality now.
Re-polling is being recommended only for 13 panchayat wards of East district and not the entire district which was the initial demand of the agitating independent candidates. The DC who is also the Returning Officer also allowed the ‘opposing’ parties to have 3 ‘observers’ in the counting room to oversee the counting and results declaration process.
As for the “clerical error”, this resulted when the sequence of names on the ‘ballot papers’ issued to candidates and the counting sheets did not match leading to much confusion, including wrong names being announced as winners.
The fracas broke out at around 10 AM today after several results were retracted; several Independent candidates who had initially been told that they had won were later told that they had actually lost the polls in their respective wards.
After explaining the error, the DC clarified that it was not serious enough to warrant a re-poll, but he would still be recommending re-election at the 13 wards for the satisfaction of the candidates. A formal announcement on this will be made by the State Election Commission.
The counting officers including the Returning Officer while explaining that there was no discrepancy in the number of votes, said that the number of votes were only taken down in wrong order [because of th mismatch in sequence].
So while Kumari Chettri, an independent candidate of Lossing ward had been handed over the form with her name in serial number 1 with 175 votes polled and the SDF candidate with 103 votes; this was later reversed with her actually getting only 103 and the SDF candidate 175 votes. Her name had erroneously been recorded in serial number 1, or so was the explanation.
Similarly, Chandra Maya Tamang, an independent candidate of Paiyong ward had been told she had won with 120 votes; however this was later reversed with her actually getting only 68 votes and her rival, the SDF candidate getting 120 votes. There were some independent candidates who had already begun celebrating with khadas etc only to be told later that they had actually lost.
13 results had been declared before the issue was brought to light and counting held up until the re-poll solution was worked out.
Besides the ‘clerical’ error which almost brought down the house the unwarranted entry of Deputy Mayor, Shakti Singh and Officer on Special Duty, OP Bhandari into the counting auditorium without valid passes while the process was underway also came to the notice of the candidates who demanded an explanation. With the TNA complex under heavy security and a strong presence of SAP personnel the Independent candidates got together to condemn the slack attitude of the administration in this regard and they also expressed strong doubts of favoritism towards the ruling front.
The protesting Independents remained insistent that the administration should not have allowed him to enter as he did not have a valid pass. The Independent candidates were unwilling to allow the counting process to continue and in fact alleged that the incident indicated that the ruling front had an influence on the counting process.
Later a delegation comprising of Tseten Lepcha, Anand Lama, Rudra Khatiwada and a few others met with Returning Officer, the SP East and the Election Observor, SK Shilal where the error was explained by the Returning Officer. The Returning Officer took pains to explain the working of the EVMs and how the votes were counted; furthermore he also clarified that in the confusion not only Independents but favourable results of some SDF candidates had also been reversed.
However counting of the votes could only resume after it was decided that all 13 wards, where results had been recorded in the ballot papers would go for re polling.