BENGALURU: Following complaints of EVM malfunction at a polling booth in Hebbal assembly constituency, the Election Commission has declared re-polling at this booth (number 2) located in Gandhi Vidyalaya in Lottegollahalli in RMV Layout II Stage. The re-polling will be held on Monday from 7 am to 6 pm. Voting started at the station at 7 am as scheduled. Voters alleged that the first 4-5 voters, out of the 49 who voted here, did not face any problems as the vote they cast were recorded properly. Others who subsequently voted were shocked when the VVPAT slip showed the vote was cast in favour of the candidate whom they did not vote for.
The voters complained about the same to the staff at the polling station. The staff asked others to vote. While one vote was recorded correctly, the next 3-4 votes were recorded in the name of the candidate not preferred by the voters, and this continued randomly. After a total of 49 cast votes, the staff realised that there was some problem with the EVM and informed the senior officials and suspended the voting process at the booth. The booth had a total of 1,444 votes and around 200 voters, who had queued up outside the station in the morning, waited for over two hours before they lost patience and returned home.
The voters expressed displeasure over the way the election officials handled the issue. “Though it all happened before 9 am, the staff at the station did not do anything except telling the waiting voters that they are awaiting orders from senior officers. The officials should have acted swiftly and rectified the problem,” Gajendra M, a real estate agent, whose vote was allegedly wrongly recorded, said.
Many voters visited the station only to know that the voting was suspended at that booth. Shivakumar, a businessman living close to the polling station, said, “I had come around 7.30 am and there were many people waiting. So I left thinking I can come back later. When I returned around 9.30 am, the polling was already suspended.”By late evening, the Election Commission declared the 49 votes polled at booth number 2 at this constituency as null and void and fixed Monday for a fresh poll.