Proving all speculation correct, the authority of Darrang election district on Friday night declared the BJP candidate as winner in the post of member for the Dipila-Duni Zila Parishad constituency under Sipajhar LAC after a process of reported re-checking of ballots.
Re-checking was done following allegations and counter allegations of anomalies in the counting process from both the rival BJP and Congress candidates on Thursday.
The authority declared BJP candidate Joyshree Deka winner by a narrow margin of 199 votes against her nearest rival Congress candidate Kanika Baisya.
Earlier controversy surrounded over the transparency in the counting process under a section of officials, the said post of Zila Parishad Member (ZPM) as the candidate of the Indian National Congress (INC) has staged protest hunger strike in the counting centre campus alleging sabotage against her by a section of counting officials to pave the way to declare rival BJP candidate winner Kanika Baisya, the Congress candidate for the post of member in Dipila-Duni Zila Parishad constituency has claimed that she has defeated her nearest BJP candidate Joyshree Deka by a margin of 185 votes at the end of the counting .
But the authority without declaring her winner, later carried out re-counting of the ballots of the Sarabari LP School polling station and indulging some anomalies helped the BJP candidate to win the seat by a margin of 55 votes.
Demanding justice the Congress candidate in this connection filed written complaint before the District Returning Officer on Thursday evening and since night staged protest hunger strike along with a couple of authorized counting agents.
Talking to Northeast Now, District Returning Officer and Deputy Commissioner, Darrang, Ashok Kr Barman ruled out any lack of transparency in the entire counting process clarifying that there were no official declaration of the result as claimed by the Congress candidate.
He admitted receiving of a complaint from her and assured re-checking of the ballots of the particular PS in presence of the agents of both the parties.
However, the authority stopped the re-checking process at last night anticipating some law and order situation and re-scheduled it for Friday afternoon.
Although the process of re-checking began in the afternoon it could not be completed till filing of this report in the evening reportedly due to non-cooperation of the counting agents of the Congress candidate.
Around 100 supporters and leaders of the Congress party gathered outside the counting campus of Mangaldai College and shouted slogan in support of their party candidate and against the district administration on Friday.
Meanwhile with this win of the Dipila-Duni ZP Member seat the ruling BJP has bagged the maximum of six seats in the 14 member Darrang Zila Parishad.
The main opposition Congress has bagged five seats, followed by AIUDF with two seats and independent one.
In this situation, the two elected members from AIUDF are going to play the ‘king maker’ role to touch the magic number eight to form the Zila Parishad.