As reported in the TOI
The tension underlining the Bombay Parsi Punchayat elections finally blew up on Tuesday when a meeting called by the BPP dissolved into pandemoniumthe gathered candidates and their supporters shouted and heckled each other, even as some complained of receiving physical threats.
The trouble started when lawyer Sorab Parekh, representing a candidate, strongly objected to the BPP appointing one of its senior employees to oversee the elections, scheduled to be held over three weekends next month. “This man cannot be expected to be fair and partial because he has intervened in a legal matter that has benefited a section of the voters,” said Parekh, as others in the audience rudely shouted him down.
Another aspiring candidate, activist Phiroze Amroliwalla, concurred and said “if suspicion is raised about any employee , he should voluntarily step down from monitoring the election process.” Amroliwalla also blasted the sitting trustees for interacting and carrying out a dialogue with only one set of people in the run up to the elections .”The trustees should have called a meeting of all activists, interested parties and candidates . The BPP cannot allow itself to be guided by an individual or a group,” he charged.
Dadar-based builder Jimmy Mistry, who is one of the candidates, has threatened to move court if the BPP does not come out with a standard operating procedure for holding the elections. “The Punchayat has to ensure a foolproof system so that there is no scope for any manipulation or malpractice,” he said.
Mistry has submitted a list of almost 3,000 duplicate register entries of voters. “There are people whose names have been entered twice showing twodifferent addresses and women who have certificates in their maiden names as well as their married names,” he said. Mistry added that the BPP needs to quickly do a proper evaluation of these names to avoid any kind of malpractice.
BPP chairman Minoo Shroff told TOI that the punchayat will mitigate all the apprehensions. “We are sorting out all the issues,” he said. Sitting trustee Dinshaw Mehta, who is re-contesting, said the punchayat is already in the process of deleting 888 names which have been registered twice
