Before the counting of votes in Madhya Pradesh elections, Congress has accused Balaghat District Collector Girish Mishra of rigging the postal ballot. The party has complained about this matter to the Chief Election Commissioner in Delhi. A video of opening the postal ballot box has also been shared from the official handle of Madhya Pradesh Congress.
The party says that Balaghat Collector tried to manipulate under pressure from BJP, but due to alertness the matter came to light. After the matter escalated, Jabalpur Commissioner has suspended the SDM and Tehsildar with immediate effect.
Postal ballot is a means of voting, which is prevalent even in the era of EVMs. In India, the right to vote through postal ballot is available to senior citizens, detained voters, employees on election duty and government officials posted in the military and foreign services.
According to Election Commission officials, counting of postal ballots is often done before counting of EVM votes. The election results are released after counting the postal ballot and EVM votes.
When was postal ballot started?
The concept of voting through postal ballot is quite old. To ensure the right to vote to every citizen, Rule 23 of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 was last amended in India on October 21, 2016. Postal ballot was started after this amendment.
Postal ballot is like the paper ballot which was prevalent in the 1980s. There are two parts in the postal ballot, in the first part of which voters have to fill their information. The Commission keeps this information with itself. In the second part, there are election symbols along with the names of the candidates.
In this, voters have to put a tick in front of the name of the candidate for whom they want to vote. This is what is counted during counting.
Recently, the Election Commission has also started electronic system for voting through postal ballot. In this, the postal ballot is delivered to the voters through electronic means and then the Commission takes it back through electronic means only.
Know the process of voting through postal ballot
The Election Commission sends postal ballots to the identified voters. List of Contents Page, Form 13-A, Form 13-B, Form 13-C and Form 13-D are sent along with the postal ballot. What to do and what not to do are told in Form 13-D.
There are clear instructions to the voters to cast their votes clearly, so that there is no confusion at the time of counting. If there is confusion during counting, the vote is declared invalid.
After casting the vote on the postal ballot, the voter returns everything except the content page to the competent authority. After this the Commission sends all these postal ballots to the local returning officers.
At the time of counting, 500-500 ballots are kept on each table and apart from the Commission officials, agents of all the parties are present here. EVMs are opened only after postal counting. If there is a need for recounting, only the postal one is counted first.
Why is postal ballot voting important for the opposition?
During the last elections in Madhya Pradesh, about 2 lakh 88 thousand votes were cast. Postal ballot played an important role in the victory and defeat of 10 seats in the state. These included seats like Gwalior South, Suwasra, Bina, Kolaras, Jabalpur North.
In the last elections, there was a difference of only 5 seats between BJP and Congress. This time too the contest is considered to be a very close fight.
The second big reason is the people voting through postal ballot. Through this process, government employees cast maximum votes. Due to the Old Pension Scheme issue, the votes of opposition parties have increased through postal ballot.
For example, in the 2022 elections of Uttar Pradesh, 4.42 lakh votes were cast through postal ballot, in which the SP alliance got 2.45 lakh votes. Even in the elections of Gujarat and Himachal, opposition parties got more postal ballot votes than BJP.
In Gujarat, BJP got only 38 percent votes in postal ballot, while Congress and AAP together got 54 percent votes. In Himachal, BJP got 41.1 percent votes while Congress got 49.5 percent votes in postal ballot.
Old Pension Scheme is a big issue in Madhya Pradesh also and Congress has talked about implementing it after coming to power.
When candidates lost due to postal ballot, 4 stories
1. During Bihar Assembly elections 2020, RJD’s Shakti Singh Yadav had to face defeat on Hilsa seat due to postal ballot. Shakti got 61836 votes while JDU’s Krishnamurari got 61848 votes. Shakti alleged that the administration got the postal ballot received by RJD cancelled. This matter is currently before the High Court.
2. In Bihar elections itself, Sudhakar Singh of RJD lost to Ambika Singh of BSP in Ramgarh seat in the EVM vote, but he got victory due to postal ballot vote. Ambika got 57889 votes and Sudhakar got 57284 votes from EVM. Sudhakar got 799 votes and Ambika got 305 votes in the postal ballot.
3. of 2019 Lok Sabha Elections RJD’s Surendra Yadav lost due to postal vote. Surendra Yadav got 332116 votes from EVM, while his rival Chandeshwar Prasad Chandravanshi got 333191 votes. After the postal counting, the margin of defeat of Surendra increased significantly. Yadav blamed the defeat on postal ballot.
4. Recently, during the Karnataka elections, Soumya Reddy of Congress had to face defeat in Jayanagar seat due to postal ballot. Soumya got 57591 votes from EVM while her rival CK Ramamurthy of BJP got 57297 votes. Soumya was left far behind in the postal ballot vote. He got only 190 votes, while Ramamurthy got 500 postal votes. Ultimately Soumya lost the election by 16 votes.