KARIMNAGAR: A day after polling for the Huzurabad Assembly constituency was completed, a major controversy rocked the segment on Sunday with the Congress and BJP leaders accusing the ruling TRS of trying to change the verdict in its favour by switching EVMs and VVPAT units.
The trouble broke out when EVMs and VVPAT units were moved in a private vehicle at a time when they should have been taken to the counting centres with tight security. A video corroborating the shifting of EVMs and VVPAT units into a private vehicle that did rounds in social media added fuel to the fire.
It all started when Congress activists found EVMs and VVPAT units being shifted from a bus to a private vehicle in Jammikunta. The Congress activists, along with BJP workers who joined them, captured a video of the incident and sent it to the ECI, while the police detained the person who was transporting the EVMs and VVPAT units.
Meanwhile, Returning Officer and RDO Ch Ravinder Reddy dismissed the allegations citing them as baseless.He said that the EVMs which malfunctioned at Polling Station No 100 in Jammikunta, at the time of the mock polling session that preceded the actual polling on Saturday, were sent to a godown for storing them as per the rules in force. He further said that some miscreants shot a video and circulated it on social media platforms only to create trouble.
Meanwhile, CEO Shashank Goel directed the Karimnagar Collector and Huzurabad RDO to submit a report to him on what has happened, in the wake of allegations that some EVMs and VVPAT units were switched with an intention to manipulate the data. He gave the direction during a review with officials on the byelection.Earlier in the day, BJP leaders DK Aruna, T Raja Singh and Ramachander Rao lodged a complaint with the CEO alleging attempts to tamper with the data in the EVMs.
Later, the leaders alleged that the TRS attempted to manipulate the data over fear that it would lose the bypoll. They wanted the case to be entrusted with the CBI. Aruna said that after taking EVMs and VVPAT units in the bus, its driver stopped the vehicle near a hotel belonging to a TRS leader and shifted the machines into a private car.
BJP candidate and former minister Eatala Rajender described the incident as a clear case of misuse of power. “The TRS has stooped to the level of switching EVMs, after distributing money to the voters, riding roughshod over the poll code in force,” he said.