On Monday, Chandrapur again ended up with poor show in the polling in the assembly elections. The district also was marred with ballot machine failures. Even an incident came forth where, two people were caught carrying EVM machines which were later found in a private vehicle.
While the district registered an average voting of around 65 percent, out of which Chandrapur city is expected score a meagre 45%. On Monday, even incidents of ballot machine failures across the six constituencies was reported. Even a rumour was doing rounds, where two people were caught carrying the EVM machines in Chandrapur without security guards. These EVMs were later found being carried in a private vehicle.
The incident took place in Durgapur area in Ballarpur constituency. According to news reports, the District Collector said that the machines were reserved. The incident took place in Ballarpur assembly constituency of Chandrapur district, where state's Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar is locked in though battle.
The Opposition has been long demanding for ballot papers instead of EVMs. According to the Opposition, the EVMs can be tampered with. Yesterday, taking a dig at the BJP, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi described the BJP's candidate from Haryana's Assandh as the "most honest man" in the ruling party after a video went viral in which he is purportedly heard saying no matter which button is pressed on the EVM, the vote would go to the BJP.
Another, Congress youth leader Satyajeet Tambe said on Twitter that "Nobody in Maharashtra believes in #ExitPolls. Infact people are so furious & angry ... they feel there is serious possibility of EVM tampering. Anger is so bad that it might create a Law & Order situation in state. Election Commision should take care and watch this closely."
Even though in the past, Opposition parties had raised doubts about the possibility of EVM tampering, the Election Commission of India had always maintained that the EVMs cannot be tampered. Earlier, the poll panel had even challenged political parties and technical experts to ‘demonstrate’ their charge of EVM tampering by doing so in the EVMs kept by it. No party, however, accepted the challenge to try and ‘tamper’ an EVM under the control and custody of the Commission.
