The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-Congress alliance versus Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faceoff over Chandigarh mayor poll has only been intensifying, with the latest development in the issue being another video of the alleged ballot tampering that has surfaced, showing presiding officer Anil Masih scribbling on the ballot papers and looking at the CCTV camera in between.
The new video, capturing the top angle through a CCTV camera, has been widely circulated by netizens and AAP leaders on social media, with the allegation that Anil Masih has been caught red-handed.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it was "appalled" after watching a video of the electoral proceedings during the Chandigarh mayoral polls. The top Court said it was a mockery of democracy and ordered that the ballots and the video of the electoral proceedings be preserved.
The video that the Supreme Court bench of DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra saw also showed presiding officer Anil Masih scribbling on ballot papers, which the AAP and Congress have claimed was tampering.
In a big setback to the Congress-AAP alliance and the opposition bloc INDIA, the BJP swept the January 30 Chandigarh mayoral polls, an outcome that the losing parties said was possible due to "tampering of ballot papers" by the presiding officer.
Manoj Sonkar of the BJP had defeated the AAP's Kuldeep Kumar for the mayor's post, polling 16 votes against his rival's 12. Eight votes were declared invalid.
The opposition councillors alleged that the presiding officer had tampered with the ballot papers, a charge rubbished by the BJP.
The AAP moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court and sought fresh elections under the supervision of a retired judge but the court refused to grant any interim relief.
