Army officers bribed during Lok Sabha polls: EC

New Delhi, Jun 4: S Y Quraishi, the Election Commissioner of India said that members of a political party bribed Army officers to rig postal ballots during the recent Lok Sabha polls held in India. However he refused to mention the name of the party.

Quraishi, who was giving a presentation on the just-concluded election at the House of Commons, in London, on Tuesday, Jun 2 said that this malpractice came to light during the polls in state of Punjab. He added that the Punjab police officials found that the Army soldiers were being force to vote for particular candidates by their commanding officers. The commanding officers were approached by a political party and they were bribed and the officers in return asked the soldiers to vote for that party candidates, said Quraishi about the scandal.

When asked whether India, like Britain face problems with postal ballot fraud, the Election Commissioner said that India was trying to address the problem of postal ballot fraud by strengthening the secret ballot. He added that each ballot in India has to be posted separately that too by registered post, the cost of which is borne by the Election Commission of India.

However, later Quraishi denied that he mentioned about a particular party bribing army officials and said the report was false. "There was absolutely no mention of any specific incident of a political party allegedly bribing army officers in the recent general election held in India," the Election Commissioner said.

OneIndia News