This story is from February 23, 2018

Representative Photo

AGARTALA: An EVM machine used in booth no 45 of Teliamura assembly constituency on the day of polling which was found to already contain votes has caused controversy.

On Wednesday evening, the returning officer (RO) of Teliamura, Jayanta Dey, contacted all contesting candidates of the constituency and requested them to visit his office. The RO then disclosed the matter and sought views of the candidates.

"During polling, one particular EVM had developed some problem and accordingly another EVM was brought as replacement. In the meantime, it was found to be functioning again. So the new one was not used, but while storing, the polled EVM was sent to storeroom mistakenly with the unused machines and the unused EVM went to the strong room. Both the rooms were secured," said election officials.

On Thursday, all the candidates accepted the incident as a mistake. As per norms, the EVM machine was exhibited to the candidates. Later, instead of shifting the machine from the storeroom, the RO decided to enforce all protocol for the storeroom, officials said.

"We believe it was a mistake and going for repoll might cause harm to us. We have seen voters hardly turn up for repolls. So all of us agreed to accept it as a mistake. During inspection, it was found to be properly signed by the agents and the presiding officer," said BJP candidate Kalyani Roy.

CPM candidate Gouri Das also refused re-polling but demanded that proper enquiry be made into the incident.

