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Times of India : Major political parties like Congress, BJP and BSP got egg on their face on Friday when embarrassing facts came to the fore during a verification exercise carried out by UT to gather details regarding backgrounds of recommended persons by political parties for the job of counting agents.

Speaking scores about the credibility of these political parties, most of the proposed candidates were found involved in several criminal cases. Assistant electoral and returning officers (AERO) of various areas had forward the list of recommended agents to the UT police for verification on Friday.

Sources said Congress had recommended the names of youth Congress leader HS Lucky, councillor Davinder Singh Babla, Kamaljit Singh Panchi and others, all of whom were found involved in one criminal case or the other. Notably, HS Lucky and councillor Babla were recently booked in a criminal case in Sector 19 police station.

To add to this, BJP had recommended names of party leader Rajiv Goyal, Ram Lal, councillor Narinder Chaudhary, Rajesh Kalia and others, who too were found involved in several criminal cases during the verification exercise.

Importantly, BJP leader Rajiv Goyal was recently arrested under the Excise Act, while Narinder Chaudhary was booked for thrashing a Congress supporter and manhandling a cop on May 13 when the voting was still on.

Talking to TOI, AERO PS Shergill said, ''The recommended agents by different parties would not be allowed inside the counting booths since they have been found to be involved in criminal activities. Even after repeated requests by the administration, political parties recommended the names of these counting agents only on Thursday night.''

In addition, criminal cases were also found pending against some BSP supporters who were recommended by the party for the task of counting.
Meanwhile, police sent a report to concerning assistant electoral and returning officers in this regard.