Register 'refusal to vote' to help prevent bogus voting

Not feeling gung ho about voting for any of the candidates in your constituency. Even if you don't wish to cast your ballot, you should visit the polling booth to register your refusal to vote as it helps prevent bogus voting, says a senior election officer.

The West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Debashis Sen has specially directed all polling and presiding officers to allow voters to register their refusal to cast their ballots in favour of any of the candidates by coming to the polling booth personally.

Such voters would be allowed to register their refusal under Rule 49(O) of the Conduct of Election Rules -1961, he said yesterday.

The Rule has been clear on the issue but this time the polling officials have been specially reminded about it for the coming Lok Sabha elections, Sen said.

In case voters remained absent instead of registering their refusal, "there is a possibility of false votes being cast", Sen said.

Sen said nearly 2.5 million voters in West Bengal do not have the Election Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) though their names figure in the voters' list.

About 30,000 EPIC in Kolkata South and 27,000 in Kolkata North Parliamentary seats still remained undistributed. "Steps are being taken to distribute as many as possible ahead of the election," the CEO said.

Sen said the EC has so far received 26 complaints of violation of model code, mostly regarding wall writing, from various districts.

"Notice has already been issued in all these cases reported suo motu by the police and Model Code Squad of the Commission during regular monitoring," he said.