Following the Supreme Court’s criticism of the municipal poll officer for “defacing” the ballot paper in the Chandigarh Mayor polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) presented CCTV footage on Monday, claiming that the BJP Presiding officer openly destroyed and invalidated votes.

Sharing the CCTV footage as ‘proof’ of the ballot paper tampering by the civic poll officer, the Aam Aadmi Party, in a post on X, wrote, “Now accept it, BJP. What can be a greater proof than this? See how the Presiding Officer of the BJP openly destroyed the flag of democracy by cancelling the votes himself. This is a living proof of BJP’s dictatorship.”

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court slammed the civic poll officer who held the Chandigarh Mayor elections and said that it is obvious that the returning officer has “defaced” the ballot papers.

“Is this the way he conducts the elections? This is a mockery of democracy. This is a murder of democracy. We are appalled. This man should be prosecuted. Is this the behaviour of the Returning Officer?” Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said.

The apex court further ordered the preservation of an entire record of the election process including ballot papers, videography, and other material through the Registrar General of Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and other party leaders on February 2 staged a protest in Delhi against the BJP over the Chandigarh mayoral elections.

During the protest, CM Kejriwal said, “BJP messes up in elections; there were often allegations that BJP wins elections by messing up; BJP steals election votes, tampers with EVMs gets names removed from the voter list, and adds fake names, we heard. We used to hear that fake votes were cast but never found any proof. There is a verse written in the Gita, Yada Yada hi Dharmasya Glanirbhavati Bharata: whenever too much sin is committed on this earth, then the God above will come to the earth.”

“This election in Chandigarh shows that they are the pot of sin. How did it get filled? When the pot of sin gets filled too much, then nature moves its broom, and God moves its broom and corrects things. The Chandigarh election was a small one. The world’s biggest party was caught stealing votes in the Chandigarh elections; it was caught red-handed.” he added.

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Chandigarh mayor elections: AAP presents ‘proof’ of ballot paper tampering by ‘Presiding Officer of BJP’