President, Apni Party, Altaf Bukhari has lodged a written complaint with the Election Commission seeking probe into the “abrupt shifting” of four notified polling stations from Pashana village to the Mughal Road in Poonch district ostensibly to facilitate “bogus voting.” The complaint addressed to Chief Electoral Officer, Hardesh Kumar reads: “An inquiry needs to be conducted into a significant poll percentage from these makeshift polling booths that were placed on (the) Mughal Road when at least 90 percent of villagers of Poshana village have already migrated to the towns of Poonch and Rajouri districts due to snowfall.”
The inhabitants of village Pashana in block Buffliaz, Surankote Tehsil in Poonch district had to vote on November 28 for District Development Council (DDC) elections.
“Instead of facilitating the polling these polling stations were brazenly shifted to some isolated place at (the) Mughal Road in the morning on the day of polling without notification from the concerned District Electoral Officer and the contesting candidates were also not consulted by some officials,” it reads.
The complaint says that most of villagers of Poshana village comprising 2200 registered voters had migrated to various places in Poonch and Rajouri towns due to snowfall.
Since the polls were conducted in some makeshift tents, one km far from Poshana village, the complaint says “it has come to the notice that some fake voters were ferried from some adjacent villages at behest of a regional political party in connivance with some officials.”