BHUBANESWAR: Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) RS Gopalan on Monday dismissed an allegation by the BJD that a truckload of electronic voting machines (EVMs) from Ganjam district was brought to Nuapada fraudulently by the district collector on November 9.
Describing the allegation as completely baseless, the CEO said at a media conference here that the CCTV footage of the EVM warehouses at Ganjam have been verified and there have been no such activities there. “No EVM has been brought from anywhere nor sent out of Nuapada district,” he added.
“The EVM warehouse of Ganjam district was not at all opened in the entire month of November. The CCTV feed from Ganjam has been verified, no truck had entered or exited the two EVM warehouses in Ganjam in the near past,” Gopalan said.
He added that as per the instructions of the ECI, 720 sets of EVMs were requisitioned (200 per cent of the requirement of EVMs/VVPATs) for first-level checking for 358 polling stations in the Nuapada Assembly constituency.