The returning officer for the biennial elections for Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh has issued guidelines for the voters on how to cast the vote through ballot paper. 

The instructions are significant against the backdrop of the controversy over the polling for mayoral elections of Chandigarh Nagar Nigam. The poll was set aside by the Supreme Court and the loser joint candidate of Aam Aadmi Party-Congress was declared elected by the apex court.

Polling for the 10 seats of the Rajya Sabha will be held here on Tuesday and all the members of UP assembly are eligible to vote in this election.

Special Secretary of UP assembly, Brij Bhushan Dubey, who is the returning officer, on Monday, specifically gave seven reasons for a vote becoming invalid if the instructions were not followed.

The voters have been advised to use only the purple colour ink pen to be provided to each MLA by the returning officer for affixing their preference in numerals only on the ballot paper. The vote will be invalid if ball point pen, pencil or any other marking instrument is used by the voter.

The voters have been advised to write in the number 1 in numeral in front of only one  candidate’s name whom the MLAs want to give first preference vote. If the number of candidates are five against two seats, then the voter should mark the priority from one to five only in numerals, not in words. The voters can use Roman or Devanagari numerals. The vote will become invalid if any other mark l like cross is written in front of the name of the candidate.

The voters have been cautioned that their vote will become invalid if they affix their signature or write something or put a thumb impression.

The vote will become invalid if a numeral is not written in front of the name of the candidate or number 1 is written in front of more than one candidate, or preference is written in words instead of numerals.