The Supreme Court yesterday appointed Janata Dal leaders Madhu Dandavate and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh to conduct the party presidential polls before July 3.
This order replaces the earlier one in which Jaipal Reddy was named along with Dandavate to oversee the polls. Reddy has declined to take up the responsibility for personal reasons. Therefore, the court asked both the electoral officer P K Samantray and the present party president Laloo Prasad Yadav to choose another person with his consent.
After hours of deliberation, both the contending sides brought a list of names, over which there was further haggling. In the end, Singh was chosen to replace Reddy. The bench comprising Justice S C Sen and Justice S P Kurdukar recorded the statement of counsel for the parties to the dispute that both Singh and Dandavate had granted their prior consent. The court did not want the new nominee to decline the invitation, as Reddy did. The litigation in the Delhi high court and the Supreme Court has already wasted ten days.
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The court allowed Reddys application seeking to be relieved of the responsibility but refused his plea for withdrawing the remark made by the judges against Reddy on Monday. The judges had described Reddys behaviour as irresponsible.
Singh and Dandavate have to consider the objections already filed regarding alleged discrepancies in the voters list by rival factions and dispose them of in three days from today so that the poll could go on as scheduled.