Dimapur, February 25 (MExN): Anyone committing the offence of undue influence or personation at an election shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both, the Nagaland Chief Electoral Officer cautioned on Saturday.
In a press release received here on Saturday, CEO V Shashank Shekhar urged the Presiding Officers and Polling officials and the district election machinery to ensure that no proxy voting takes place in any polling stations, except those person who has been authorized to vote as proxy for an elector under any law for the time being in force in so far as he votes as a proxy for such elector.
He also explained that the offence of ‘undue influence’ at an election, under Sections 171C, 171D and 171F of the Indian Penal Code, pertains to voluntary interference or attempts to interfere with the free exercise of any electoral rights. Similarly, anyone who “applies for a voting paper or votes in the name of any other person, whether living or dead, or in a fictitious name, or who having voted once at such election applies at the same election for a voting paper in his own name, and whoever abets, procures or attempts to procure the voting by any person in any such way, commits the offence of personation at an election.”
