By Yohan Perera
Rejecting the results of the Uva Provincial Council election, Democratic Party (DP) leader Sarath Fonseka said yesterday that his party would file a petition in the Supreme Court calling for the declaration of the polls as null and void.

"This secretary informed us that malpractices had been planned in order to stop my party from obtaining seats in the Uva Provincial Council"

Mr. Fonseka said at a media briefing that there had been malpractices during the counting of the votes. He said a secretary of a state institution had informed them beforehand of the planned malpractices in the counting of votes. “This secretary informed us that malpractices had been planned in order to stop my party from obtaining seats in the Uva Provincial Council but we did not make a note of it as we had planned to put our agents in the counting centres,” the former army commander said.

He said the malpractices had been carried out when sorting the votes and separating the ballot papers which had been marked according to the parties voted for. He said the ballot papers were separated according to party and put into the boxes allocated for the relevant party. He said some of the ballot papers which had been marked for his party had been put into the ruling UPFA’s box. He said agents of his party had been threatened when they objected.