THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Disconnection of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine from its Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) before printing all the election symbols or moving to the next stage before completion of the process could have resulted in the printing of an extra VVPAT slip during mock poll in Kasaragod Lok Sabha seat. This is the finding of a report submitted by the Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), that provides the EVMs, to the Election Commission on the incident.
Irregularities were detected in four EVMs during the mock poll in Kasaragod Parliamentary constituency on Wednesday. When the ‘vote’ was cast for all 10 candidates in the EVMs, the VVPAT machine gave 11 print outs. The BJP’s ‘Lotus’ symbol was found to be printed twice during the mock poll.
The report from BEL, seen by TNIE, explained that during the election symbol loading process, all the symbols are first loaded from SLU to VVPAT and then printed continuously without cutting in between. If the VVPAT is disconnected from SLU before printing of all the loaded symbols, a partial printed slip is generated till the time of disconnection and is not cut.
“At the next power-on event, the printout of the standardisation slip generated will add to the partial printed slip generated during symbol loading,” the BEL report said. Taking into account this possibility, the combined printout (standardisation slip and the partial printed symbol slip) will have added information of “NOT TO BE COUNTED” printed at the top.
The lotus symbol of BJP candidate Ashwini M L, was listed on top as per alphabetical order of candidates. “If the VVPAT is disconnected from SLU during printing of first candidate. the same gets added to standardisation slip at next power on event during mock poll,” BEL explained. Since “NOT TO BE COUNTED” is printed at the top of such slips, these are to be discarded during mock poll verification, the report by BEL said. “The incomplete symbol loading which had happened in four VVPATs in Kasaragod could have occurred due to disconnection of the cable or by moving the VVPATs to next stage before completion of prints,” BEL said.
‘Done in haste’
A total of 280 engineers of BEL have been deployed across the 20 parliamentary constituencies in the state, with two personnel in each assembly segment.
The poll panel is reportedly of the view that the commissioning process, carried out by BEL engineers, was done in a haste, resulting in the fiasco and it constituted a ‘serious lapse’ on their part.