UP local body poll: SP alleges election manual was changed recently

A day before the counting of votes in urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party on Friday alleged the election manual was amended recently, deleting from it portions related to declaration of votes received by candidates after every round of counting.

The party accused the BJP of hatching a "conspiracy" to "influence" the results in the local body polls and change the mandate of the people.

Manoj Pandey, the chief whip of the SP in the Legislative Assembly, said that according to the election manual for local body polls, there is a provision of writing on a blackboard the details of valid votes obtained by a candidate, invalid votes and the total votes polled on a blackboard after every round of counting.

Besides, they have to immediately declare these details, feed the data online and also announce the same through public address system, he said.

Apart from this, there is a provision of announcing the results after every two hours, he said.

But these provision