Kerala: Collector rules out sabotage

 

District collector P. Bhaskaran, who is also the district election officer, had given a final report to the SEC recommending re-polling here after voting was completely disrupted.

 

Polling would be held at ten booths in Ernad taluk, 32 in Nilambur, 16 in Perinthalmanna, seven in Tirur, 30 in Ponnani and ten booths in Kondotty on Friday.

 

The district collector has ruled out chances of sabotage saying the problems were caused due to non-working of EVMs. He said there was no evidence to suggest manual tampering of the machines anywhere.

 

“We have been getting calls from all parts of the district saying that the EVMs were not working. We had only four technicians to cater to 3,911 wards in Malappuram alone. That caused further delay,” he told Deccan Chronicle.

 

He said the machines developed technical snag repeatedly even after the technicians corrected it. “In many places the voting was completely disrupted as EVMs did not work. In other places, it has to be stopped as the machines failed after a few votes were cast. Frequent failures had forced us to stop the voting repeatedly and all these booths will go to polls again on Friday,” he said.

 

Political parties have demanded a detailed probe alleging that there were sabotage attempts. Even the SEC indicated a possible sabotage angle saying machines were damaged intentionally.

 

Parties had alleged that paper rolls, tapes and glue were used to damage them. Despite widespread disruptions, Malappuram recorded an overall voting percentage of 74 and voters were allowed beyond 7 pm at booths where voting was delayed for about two hours.