Jalalabad (Ferozepore), March 1
Taking suo motu notice of a report appearing in The Tribune on Saturday about the SDM-cum-Returning Officer over ruling the decision of the State Election Commission (SEC) regarding the nomination of a Congress candidate, Mr Prithivi Raj Doomra, for the coming Municipal Council Election, the SEC today again issued a directive not to include the name of Mr Doomra in the list of contesting candidates.

In an interesting case, the SDM-cum-Returing Officer (RO), Mr Sanjay Popli, yesterday accepted the nomination paper of Mr Prithivi Raj Doomra, President, Block Congress Committee, Jalalabad, and party candidate for ward number 12 for the Municipal Council elections despite the fact that the State Election Commission (SEC) had deleted his name from the voters list by treating the vote as bogus on the same day.

A news item was published in this connection in The Tribune on Saturday. Taking suo moto notice of that news item, the SEC, Mr C.L. Bains today faxed an order to the RO, Mr Sanjay Popli,” that the name of Mr Doomra should not be included in the list of contesting candidates.

Mr Bains had also written in the order that since the SEC had already passed an order on the vote status of Mr Doomra and others no fresh enrolment/deletion could be undertaken without the prior approval of the commission. From the newspaper The Tribune dated 1.3.2003, it had been gathered that the RO had accepted the nomination papers of Mr Doomra.

According to a copy of the order faxed to the District Electoral Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner, Mr Raminder Singh, and the RO, Mr Sanjay Popli, ysterday the SEC while deleting the name of Mr Doomra from the voters’ list had also directed them that no fresh enrolment/deletion should be undertaken without the prior approval of the Commission.

Mr Popli, who started the scrutiny process of nomination papers at about 4 pm in his office yesterday said he had not received any fax from the SEC regarding the deletion of the name of Mr Doomra from the voters’ list. He also declared the acceptance of nomination of Mr Doomra as Congress candidate from ward number 12 yesterday.

However, today he declared that the nomination of Mr Doomra was rejected as per the order of the SEC. The total number of valid nominations were 67 instead of 68.

Mr Raminder Singh, District Electoral Officer (DEO), said a fax of the SEC order was received in his office late in the evening yesterday and he had forwarded the same to the RO. He stated that as per the rules, no authority, including the SEC, could interfere in the election process after the nomination papers were filed before the RO. He added that by accepting the nomination of Mr Doomra, the rules pertaining to the Municipal Council elections were not violated.