MUMBAI: In an interesting turn of events in Western Maharashtra town of Miraj on Wednesday, a voter brought the whole election process at a polling centre to halt and made the election machinery to wait for him for about half an hour, sources have said.
While the polling for Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad Municipal Corporation was being conducted, at the ideal English School polling booth of Ward no 4 in Miraj, a voter pressed only three buttons and vanished. In order to elect four representatives from the ward, every voter was supposed to cast four votes. However, this particular voter, whose name has been withheld by the authorities, cast only three votes and left the polling booth. This brought the whole system to halt as unless and until a voter casts all the votes he is supposed to cast, the EVMs don't let the next voter to vote.
When the electoral officers realized that the voter has left without casting a vote, they were in a fix. They also checked option to replace the EVM with spare one to let the voting continue. But, that process too was time-consuming. Meanwhile, from the voter's list police traced the voter to his home and persuade him to come to the polling centre and complete the voting process.
When the police reached his home, the guy was brushing his teeth. After finishing that, he said he has to answer nature's call and then have a bath. After almost half an hour the voter came to the polling station and completed the process of casting his vote, much to the relief of returning officers.The guy said he deliberately did so to teach a lesson to government officials who employ many such time-killing techniques while dealing with public grievances.
When contacted the state election commission spokesperson said that they have not received any information on any such even and added that there are well defined rules and procedures to complete the election process in any such eventualities without much delay.