VIJAYAPURA: A youth stated in his Facebook post that he had found Voter Verified Paper Audit Trial (VVPAT) receipts of the recently concluded assembly elections at Ukkali village.
Exactly 11 days ago, people had found eight VVPATs in a shed at Manuguli of Basavana Bagewadi which worried defeated contestants and the investigation is still in process. Now, two VVPAT receipts have been found at the Ukkali village of Basavana Bagewadi, according to the youth identified as Basavaraj Gennur of Basavana Bagewadi.
The VVPAT receipts are in the name of BJP contestant Sangaraj Desai who lost polls by a margin of 30,000 votes to Congress nominee Shivananda Patil.
Defeated JD(S) candidate Appugouda Patil has written a letter to the Election Commission saying district election officials failed to conduct fair elections and sought action with regard to the "illegally found" VVPATs and VVPAT receipts.
Speaking to the reporters, Deputy Commissioner Sanjay B Shettannavar, who is also a district election officer, said "the receipts have been recovered and will be sent to the Chief Election Office to verify their authenticity. A complaint has been registered and after the report action will be initiated."
The DC also said, "before starting the voting process on the polling day, officials would hold mock voting to verify the functioning of the voting machines. These receipts might be one among them as they would taken out from the VVPATs and would be sealed before starting the actual voting process.