Santoshgarh/Una, June 1 (Rajveer Chopra):- Controversy has deepened over the election results of Una Block Samiti Ward No.-24 Sanoli. BJP-supporting villagers and public representatives have raised serious questions about the vote counting process and have accused the administration of irregularities. On the other hand, the administration has termed all these allegations as baseless and declared the vote counting process as completely transparent.
According to the villagers, the counting of votes for Block Samiti Ward-24 was held at Government College Una. They allege that after the initial counting, Tripta Devi, wife of Baliram, was declared the winner by 15 votes by the SDM of Una. The villagers claim that at that time Tripta Devi got 811 votes and her opponent candidate Charan Kaur got 796 votes, while 50 votes were recorded in the NOTA or rejected category.
It is alleged that when Tripta Devi’s counting agents reached to collect the certificate of victory, they were asked to wait for some time. After this, they were told to recount the votes. The villagers say that the counting process was stopped for about one and a half hours and later a recount was done on different tables.
The protesters allege that the election result was completely changed after the recount. According to them, the final result showed 845 votes for Charan Kaur and 754 votes for Tripta Devi, while the number of NOTA and rejected votes was 58. The villagers say that the candidate who was earlier declared the winner by 15 votes was later shown as the loser by 91 votes.
Newly elected Gram Panchayat Sanoli President Jarnail Singh and Vice President Pawan Diwan alleged that their supported candidate Tripta Devi was defeated under pressure from the government. They said that a legal battle will be fought over the matter and the court will be knocked.
Hundreds of villagers gathered in Sanoli on Monday and staged a protest, raising slogans against the state government. The protesters demanded a fair and transparent investigation into the matter and warned that if appropriate action is not taken, the struggle will be intensified.
On this occasion, Sanoli President Jarnail Singh, Vice President Pawan Diwan, Former President Jasvir Kaur, Former Yuva Morcha President Rajesh Kaushal, Mahesh Mangu, Harpreet Khando, Retired DSP Karnail Singh, Ravinder Bittu, Ram Saroop, Kulwant Singh Rana, Manish Diwan, Sneh Lata Diwan, Baliram Rehal, Tripta Devi, Rajinder Rehal, Shiv Kumar Gaur, Pawan Kaushal, Rajesh Sharma, Honey Manku, Vishal Rehal, Nitish and a large number of villagers were present.

**Administration's side**
Regarding this matter, Una Tehsildar Vipin Thakur said that the allegations of rigging in the counting of votes are completely baseless. He said that after the first counting, a recount was conducted on the demand of one candidate. After this, the second candidate also demanded a recount of votes, on which a recount was conducted for the second time. He said that the final election results were announced only after both sides were satisfied.