Shashi Tharoor's team demands that all votes from UP be deemed invalid

Congress presidential poll candidate Shashi Tharoors team has written to the partys chief election authority flagging extremely serious irregularities in the conduct of the election in Uttar Pradesh and demanded that all votes from the state be deemed invalid sources saidTharoors campaign team has also raised serious issues in the conduct of the election in Punjab and TelanganaIn his letter to Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry Tharoors chief election agent Salman Soz has said the facts are damning and the election process in Uttar Pradesh is devoid of credibility and integrity they saidSoz conveyed to Mistry that what has been witnessed in Uttar Pradesh is an open challenge to the authority of your office as well as contempt for the orders of the Congress president and the Congress Working Committee to hold free and fair elections We would like to underline that we have no evidence that Mallikarjun Kharge ji was aware of how his supporters were engaging in electoral malpractice in Uttar Pradesh We are certain that if he was aware he would never allow what happened in Uttar Pradesh Soz said in his letter according to sourcesHe Kharge would not allow the tainting of an election that is so important for the Indian National Congress Soz was quoted as saying in the letterAlso Read Congress presidential polls Shashi Tharoor thanks voters as counting of votes beginsThe irregularities in Uttar Pradesh flagged by Tharoors team include use of unofficial seals for ballot boxes presence of unofficial persons in polling booths voting malpractice no polling summary sheet presence of AICC secretaries inCharge of Uttar PradeshWe do not see how this election can be deemed free and fair if the tainted process of Uttar Pradesh is allowed to stand We therefore demand that all votes from Uttar Pradesh be deemed invalid the letter dated October 18 said according to the sourcesTharoors team said it suspects voter fraud in this election alleging that there were delegates who were not present in the Lucknow area on the day of voting and their votes were castThere were complaints from people about not being allowed to cast their votes since others had already cast their votes the letter saidWhen our agents complained about voter malpractice supporters of the other side would come inside the polling booth and create a ruckus and start threatening our polling agents Soz said according to sourcesIn a separate letter to Mistry Tharoors team also raised serious issues in the conduct of the election in Punjab and TelanganaTharoor had repeatedly raised the issue of uneven playing field in the polls but maintained that Gandhis had assured him of neutralityOf the total 9915 Pradesh Congress Committee PCC delegates that formed the electoral college to pick the party chief in a secret ballot over 9500 cast their ballot at PCC offices and the AICC headquarters on MondayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever