NEW DELHI: Chiefs of Congress units in Madhya Pradesh , Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — Kamal Nath, Sachin Pilot and Bhupesh Baghel — moved the Supreme Court on Friday and sought a direction to the Election Commission to conduct free and fair assembly polls.

The three states are set to go to polls by the year-end. MP Congress chief Kamal Nath’s petition detailed inactions and omissions on the part of the EC and said these would “impede free, fair and unbiased upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh”.

Admitting that “MP assembly polls are crucial in many ways to INC”, Nath said, “EC is the watchdog of free and fair elections and is duty bound to circumvent pressure and ascertain that ensuing elections are free from any impediment in order to uphold the democratic sanctity and rights of the voter.”

One of the issues raised by Nath pertained to “duplicate and fake voters” in the electoral list. He said Congress had made a detailed presentation to the EC on June 3 highlighting 60 lakh “duplicate, repeat, multiple, illegal, invalid and false entries”.

He said more than 24 lakh voters were dropped from the electoral list. He also sought employing EVMs with voter verifiable paper audit trait (VVPAT) in at least 50% of booths and said if any candidate or agent expressed doubts over EVM computation, the returning officer should switch counting to VVPAT.

