New Delhi, April 18 : The Delhi High Court on Monday turned down a plea to remove the election symbol from the ballot paper, including the unit of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), in the municipal elections in the national capital.
The division bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla dismissed the PIL filed by Alka Gahlot, who had contested and lost the civic body polls in 2017.
Advocate HS Gehlot, appeared for the petitioner was seeking the court’s direction to the state election commission in the matter.
Earlier, the court had sought the response of the election commission in the matter.
According to the plea, the election symbols are not required in the presence of photographs of the candidate and the presence of a reserved election symbol is ultra-vires the provisions of law enshrined in the Constitution of India and the Delhi Municipal Corporation, Act 1957.
“In the presence of photographs of the contesting candidates on the ballot paper, there is no need for any other election symbol.Even illiterate voters can identify their candidate by seeing the photograph and cast their vote in secrecy,” it read.
It further stated that the State Election Commission puts the reserved symbol on the ballot paper in “blatant violation” of the provisions of the Constitution and the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act as there is no reference to political parties in the Constitution and the Act.
“The presence of the symbol of political parties on the ballot paper is such that it shifts the focus of the contesting candidate from the people of his ward to the political party bosses (who has the power of nomination for party ticket)”, it stated.
jw/pgh
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