Congress lodges plaint with EC about EVM ‘glitches’

Mumbai: The Congress on Monday made 43 complaints to the Election Commission about alleged glitches in EVMs across the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra. Majority of the complaints came in from Dhule and Nandurbar, the party said.  

In all four phases of the Lok Sabha elections in the state, 135 complaints pertaining to the slow functioning of and glitches in EVMs were registered with the ECI by the Congress.

The ECI officials said that they immediately replaced the EVMs that were not working properly. The vice-president and coordinator of the legal units of the state Congress, advocate Gauri Chhabria, said that most of the complaints of malfunctioning of EVMs came from the Bhiwandi, Nandurbar and Dhule constituencies.

An ECI official said that they had reserved adequate EVMs and Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in the polling booths. Hence, the polling had been slightly affected.

Ms Chhabria said, “We have made a total 52 complaints, including 43 of EVM glitches. Thirteen glitches in EVMs came from Dhule alone. EVM glitches were reported at three places in Andheri (east). We also received some response from the ECI and accordingly, we will follow up.”

The ECI officials said that 115 Ballot Units (BUs) and 84 Control Units (CUs) and 235 VVPATs had been replaced in the first phase as all of them malfunctioned.

In the second phase, 185 BUs, 121 CUs, and 304 VVPATs had been found dysfunctional and had to be changed. In the third phase, 483 BUs, 305 CUs and 1270 VVPATs had been replaced. In the fourth phase, 1165 BUs, 732 CUs and 2,467 VVPATs had been replaced.

Shirish Mohod, deputy chief electoral officer of Maharashtra, said, “As we have received complaints of malfunctioning and slow working of EVMs from the Congress Party, we have taken corrective measures immediately to ensure smooth polling.”