HYDERABAD: Denying the accusations made by some political parties regarding the Electronic Voting Machines, the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana, Rajat Kumar on Wednesday categorically declared that the just-concluded State Assembly elections witnessed zero per cent EVM tampering.
The CEO, while stating that there was no scope for tampering of balloting units, said: “All the guidelines laid down by the Election Commission of India were followed right from the mock polling till the movement of EVMs machines — both used and un-polled EVMs separately — to strong rooms. There were complaints of tampering at some polling stations and there were also complaints from about 92 poling stations which were not related to tampering.
“The two-tier security system put in place by State and Central forces at all the strong rooms and continuous monitoring of the same with the help of CC cameras ensured that there was no possibility of tampering EVMs.” Rajat Kumar, however, revealed that there were some pre-polling and post-polling issues, but they were resolved in time. “There some issues. For example, after completion of mock polling, the polling staff by mistake failed to remove the votes that were polled. But they were removed after checking the voting register,” he said.
“Another issue cropped at two polling stations where, after the completion of polling process the closure button was not pressed. But that issue too was sorted out after taking due permission from concerned Returning Officers and general observers, and the votes polled also matched with VVPAT slips,” he informed. The CEO also termed as ‘absolutely wrong’ the allegations made by some political parties that 20 lakh voters names were deleted and they were not allowed to vote for December 7 elections.
“It is the responsibility of the citizens to check their names in the list at least once in a year. If they find their names deleted, the missing voters and also the new voters can enrol themselves either through BLOs or online,” he said. On Tuesday, the ECI had announced the Special Summary Revision of Photo Electoral Rolls with reference to January 1, 2019 as the qualifying date and informed that integrated draft electoral roll schedule will be published on December 26.
He also informed that list of 119 elected representatives for TS Legislative Assembly was submitted to Governor ESL Narasimhan on Wednesday. The list includes names of 88 TRS members & those of INC (19), MIM (7), TDP (2), BJP (1), Forward Block (1) & Independent (1).
Notification issued on constitution of new Legislative Assembly
Hyderabad: A statutory notification of the Election Commission of India (ECI) pertaining to the General Elections to the Telangana State Legislative Assembly, 2018 for constitution of a new Legislative Assembly was issued by the State Government on Wednesday.
In pursuance of Section 73 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of 195 I ), the ECI has notified the names of the members elected for 119 Assembly Constituencies, along with their party affiliations, if any, in the schedule to the notification. The notification was issued ECI Principal Secretary, Satyandra Kumar Rudola and Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana, Rajat Kumar.
The list consists names of 88 TRS members, Indian National Congress (19), MIM (7), TDP (2), BJP (1), Forward Block (1) and Independent (1).