Congress complains to EC about faulty EVMs

Mumbai: In the second phase of the Lok Sabha election to 10 seats, complaints regarding slow working of electronic voting machines (EVM) and malfunction in the Marathwada region have been registered with the Election Commission of India (ECI) by Congress party’s Maharashtra unit.

According to the Congress party, there were 57 complaints pertaining to slow working of EVMs, malfunction of EVMs, and violation of the model code of conduct (MCC), among others, at Hingoli, Latur, Nanded and Solapur. Meanwhile, the voting percentage was 62.43 per cent.

An official of the state branch of the ECI said that 235 EVMs were not working properly including 144 ballot units, and 91 control units. In addition to this, 195 VVPATs malfunctioned and all of them were immediately replaced.

In an official statement issued by the Congress, the party demanded that BJP candidate Sudhakar Shringare’s candidature from Latur be revoked as Mr Shringare had violated the MCC. In addition to this, the party also demanded that a case be registered against him and Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar who had also violated the MCC.  

The vice-president of the legal unit of the state Congress, Vijay Pandey said, “We have informed the state chief electoral officer and ECI about the malfunction and slow process of the EVMs along with the violation of the MCC at Latur and Nanded among other places in all ten LS seats. We have sent 57 emails to them.”  35,000 police personnel were deployed to conduct the election.

The highest voting percentage was registered in Beed at 64.37 per cent, while Solapur Lok Sabha constituency witnessed  lowest voting percentage at 59.57 per cent.  A total of 179 candidates are in the fray from ten seats and a total of 20,716 polling booths were used in the second phase. Out of these polling stations, a live web cast of 2,100 polling booths was carried out.