The Hindu : Front Page : Election Commission puts off Rajya Sabha poll results in U.P.

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Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004

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Front Page

Election Commission puts off Rajya Sabha poll results in U.P.

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 21. The Election Commission today put off the declaration of results of the Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and asked the Returning Officer to send records of the nomination papers of the two Congress candidates which were rejected on Saturday.

The Commission will decide the next course of action tomorrow after going through the records and the objections filed by the Congress today. The Deputy Election Commissioner, A.N. Jha, said the records would reach the Commission tomorrow and a decision would be taken by evening.

The decision to stay the declaration of results and summon the records and all necessary and relevant papers from Lucknow was taken at a meeting of the full Commission, presided over by the Chief Election Commissioner, T.S. Krishnamurthy.

A Congress delegation, including the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief, Jagdambika Pal, Congress Legislature Party leader, Pramod Tiwari, and senior party leader, Birendra Singh, in charge of party affairs in Uttar Pradesh, visited the Commission today and submitted their objections.

The party is upset over the rejection of the nomination papers of its candidates, Harendra Agrawal and M.M. Shukla, on the grounds that personal information submitted by them was not in accordance with the stipulated format. The party delegation pleaded before the Commission that results should not be declared till the nomination papers were re-examined. The delegation told the Commission that the Returning Officer's decision to reject the nomination papers was "undemocratic and unconstitutional."

As many as 11 Rajya Sabha seats from the State are at stake. In the fray are industrialist, Anil Ambani, the former cine star, Jaya Bachchan, hotelier Lalit Suri and others.

The Samajwadi Party leader, Amar Singh, also met the Deputy Election Commissioner today. He described the Congress charges as "baseless." The results were expected to be declared today and at the end of the deadline for the withdrawal of nominations there would have been 11 candidates for as many vacancies in the biennial elections for Uttar Pradesh to the Council of States.

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