The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) today alleged that electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been tampered with in Dalit and Muslim dominated areas during the bypolls in Kairana.

RLD candidate in Kairana Tabassum Hasan shot a letter to the Election Commission alleging that EVMs and VVPATs were deliberately tampered with and no action has been initiated to fix them.

However, calling the reports of largescale voting machine malfunction "an exaggeration", the Election Commission said the "severe heat conditions" were interfering with the machines

"Machines are being tampered everywhere, faulty machines haven't been replaced in Muslim&Dalit dominated areas. They (BJP) think they can win polls like this. That won't happen,"Â Hasan later told media, as quoted by news agency ANI.

"I've been continuously receiving complaints. They didn't expect so many ppl to come out to vote in Ramzan.Initial strategy was to hold elections in Ramzan so that ppl won't vote," she said.

Speaking to Outlook, RLD's organisation secretary for Uttar Pradesh, Rajkumar Sangwan said EVMs are found faulty in over 250 booths. "The Muslims, who are fasting on Ramzan, are standing on the queue for over three hours due to faulty EVMs and the district administration is not taking any action to fix them," he said.

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Hitting out at the faulty EVMs, Samajwadi Party's Rajendra Chaudhary said, "There are reports that in Noorpur 140 EVMs are faulty, which is because they've been tampered, there are similar reports from Kairana. They (BJP) want to avenge defeat in Phulpur & Gorakhpur, which is why they want to defeat us at any cost,"Â as quoted by ANI.

As the polling in 14 Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies in ten state of India is underway, faulty Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have been reported from many booths.

11 faulty EVMs were reported across polling booths in Bhandara-Gondiya Lok Sabha constituencies of Maharashtra, while voting has not yet started at polling booth number 170 in Arjun-Morgaon area.

Apart from this, One Control Unit at 216 booth number and three Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines at booth numbers 169, 170 and 222 were replaced during mock poll due to a technical snag in Punjab's Shahkot assembly.

Four VVPATs at booth numbers 27, 28, 132 and 45 replaced during polling in Shahkot.

Meanwhile, in Uttarakhand, various political parties have demanded a new EVM after mock poll at a polling booth in Tharali's Sarpani area due to the same reason.

(With agency inputs)

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