FIVE MEDIA ORGANISATION CHIEFS WRITE TO CEC EXPRESSING THEIR DISMAY OVER NOT HOLDING A SINGLE PC AFTER COMPLETION OF THREE PHASES VOTING

The Press Club of India alongwith Indian Women Press Corps, Press Association, Delhi Union of Journalists and Foreign Correspondents Club has written a letter to the chief election commissioner duly signed by the PCI president Gautam Lahiri n others expressing their utter dismay at the Election Commission of India for not holding a single press conference even after completion of voting in three phases across the nation.

According to the letter addressed to the chief election commissioner, the five media organisations have through their letter while expressing their concern said that till 2019 , the last general election , holding of press conference after voting in each phase was a normal practice and India being one of the largest democracies in the world and the general elections considered as the “biggest festival of democracy” the citizens have every right to know the development during the voting day from ECI which is a constitutional body.

Expressing its immense shock and surprise for not submitting the data of actual number of votes polled in the last three phases creating apprehensions in the minds of the people about the fairness of elections, the letter demands holding of the press conference after the every phase of voting and entire poll data including absolute number of votes polled and final percentage of voting released simultaneously by the next day of polling. Such transparency is necessary to uphold the voters confidence in the election said the letter written to chief ECI by the heads of five media organisations viz Gautam Lahiri, PCI, Parul Sharma- IWPC, C.K.Nayak – Press Association, S. Venkat Narayan – FCC , Sujata Madhok – DUJ.

The letter says that at Press conferences the journalists get their confusions and doubts cleared which helps them write the error free copy for their readers including help them keeping the citizens accurate aware n updated about the ongoing election.

It may be recalled that several opposition political parties especially the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has expressed his annoyance and protest over delaying the poll data apprehending that this practice gives rise of speculations of unfair conduction of elections with ECI taking this seriously passing a string rebuttal against the Congress chief.