SEC forwards Kejriwal's demand for postponing Delhi MCD polls to ECI

Delhi Election Commissioner M.K. Srivastava, while replying to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal's demand of postponing the MCD polls by a month or two, has asserted that his letter was forwarded to the Election Commission of India (ECI), which would now take the final decision.

The SEC rejected the proposal saying there was no provision to postpone the elections and only the Centre has the power to extend the tenure of the civic bodies by one year.

Earlier, Kejriwal had written to the State Election Commission asking them to postpone the MCD polls in the state if they failed to replace Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) by Voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs).

Kejriwal also sought for withdrawal of all EVMs sourced from Rajasthan, which the election body was planning to deploy in the civic polls.

Earlier this week, Kejriwal had hit out at the Election Commission of India, claiming that the poll body has been acting like an advocate to help the BJP win the polls. The AAP leader had alleged that the Commission's only intention was to bring the BJP to power in poll-bound states and that is why it was not paying heed to his request to investigate defective EVMs.