After ink controversy, EC introduces special pens for RS polls

Following the 'ink controversy' in the Haryana Rajya Sabha polls, the Election Commission today directed that a special sketch pen will be used to mark votes in future Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections.
It took the decision based on the recommendations made by a working group set up by it to suggest ways to avoid repeat of such disputes in future polls.
Soon after the controversy erupted, the commission had set up the working group of officials to recommend measures to plug the loopholes.
"The commission has issued directions that in future, an 'integrated violet sketch pen of specific design' manufactured by a particular firm shall be used in all future elections.

"Such a pen will be the instrument for recording preferences on ballot paper by the voter and at time of poll, it shall be given to each voter by the designated polling officer and shall be taken back from him after the voter comes out of the voting compartment. Any deviation from it will not be allowed under any circumstance," the poll watchdog said here.
12 votes marked using a wrong pen were declared invalid leading to the defeat of Congress-backed independent candidate R K Anand, a lawyer, who lost to media baron Subhash Chandra.
The EC mandated that all votes to be cast using a violet pen for uniformity and to ensure that secrecy of votes is maintained.

The panel is already carrying out experiments with a pen with indelible ink produced by Mysore Inks specially for the poll panel. The pen could one day replace the indelible ink bottles in Indian elections to mark the finger of people who have cast their votes.