No re-polling at Bhandara Gondia and Palghar bypoll

MUMBAI: Despite demands from the opposition parties for re-polling due to EVMs’ malfunction on Monday, the state election commission has clarified that there will not be any re-polling at Bhandara-Gondia and Palghar bypolls. The election commission said that the machines were tested before the use.

As per the commission, there were total 2,149 EVMs used in Bhandara-Gondia and 2,724 VVPATs and in Palghar 2,097 EVMs and 2,636 VVPATs.

The opposition parties complained of having major problems with EVMs in Palghar. However, the charges were denied by the Election Commission which said there was no EVM failure. “News reports surfacing in the media alleging ‘large scale’ failure of EVMs and VVPATs in the ongoing byelections and interruption of poll in the states of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh are an exaggerated projection of reality. There won’t be any re-polling at the two constituencies. The timing was also kept till 6 pm, so that the long queues at the end of the day outside polling stations could vote,” the ECI said.

However, the sources in the government said that in Palghar 276 VVPAT machines were replaced.

The officials from the EC said that the EVMs were tested at 13 locations in the past, and were supplied by the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), subsidiary of the Government of India (GoI). The same machines have been tested at two locations in the polls to Nanded constituency. There is little or no scope of tampering.