Biplab Mitra, Prasanta Majumdar: Reversal looms?

Calcutta, July 12: Calcutta High Court today directed the Election Commission of India to recount the votes cast through the electronic voting machines in the Balurghat Lok Sabha constituency on July 26.

Justice Maharaja Sinha issued the directive on a writ petition moved by the Trinamul Congress candidate of the constituency, Biplab Mitra, who had complained about an error in the counting. Mitra had lost the elections held in May last year to the RSP’s Prasanta Majumdar by 5,105 votes.

Acting on an earlier order of the court, the district magistrate of South Dinajpur, Ashok Kumar Banerjee, appeared before the judge today with documents related to the polls. The district magistrate was the returning officer for the elections.

This is not the first time that the high court has ordered a recount. In the 1991 Assembly elections, a similar order was passed after Congress candidate Dibyendu Biswas moved a petition complaining about counting errors when he lost to the CPM’s Rabin Deb from the Ballygunge seat in Calcutta. However, by the time the high court directed the recount, the date for the next Assembly polls of 1996 had been already announced. Deb won the 1996 election also. Ever since the introduction of electronic voting machines, the results delivered by them are tabulated in two forms. In the first form the result from each individual machine is tabulated and the final results are compiled in the second form.

After losing the Balurghat Lok Sabha seat last year, Mitra had complained that the tabulation from the individual machines — there were 1,232 polling stations — had indicated that he had won the elections. However, when the final compilation was made, Mitra found that he had lost. Mitra turned to the court on June 16 last year, exactly a month after the results were declared.

“Before that, my client had approached the chief electoral officer of the state and complained about the matter, but since there was no reply, he approached the court,” said Bimal Chatterjee, Mitra’s advocate.

On July 26, the results of the two forms will be compared to see if Mitra’s claim that they did not tally is substantiated. The forms have been kept with the chief electoral officer of the state.

The court had prima facie held that there was substance in the case and directed accordingly. Today, when the matter came up for hearing, the RSP MP from Balurghat was present, along with other party leaders, even though he had not been summoned by the court.

State counsel and former mayor of Calcutta Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya told the court that it had “no jurisdiction” over the case and only the Supreme Court could hear such cases. The judge, however, did not take cognisance of the observation.

Bhattacharya said the RSP would move the apex court against today’s direction.

A senior lawyer of the high court said if the results were found to be reversed and went in Mitra’s favour, the high court had no jurisdiction to “re-announce” it.

“The high court can only tell the chief electoral officer of the state about its conclusion and ask him to take the appropriate steps,” he said.