Though the storage rooms of voting machines are under proper security, the opposition parties made sure to keep purposeful surveillance the whole night outside the storage rooms, ahead of the counting of votes in the national election. The suspect arose when complaints of alleged tampering of EVMs were registered. In fact, protests in Uttar Pradesh were held after videos of alleged movement and tampering of voting machines went viral.
Last night, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, and the party’s candidate in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal visited voting machine storeroom at the central jail in the city. In UP, Congress workers sat outside the storerooms and Sonia Gandhi is seeking re-election at the moment. Also, in Chandigarh, Congress workers have been sitting outside rooms for two days to make sure no mischief takes place. After multiple videos went viral, nearly 22 opposition parties met the Election Commission yesterday and flagged the movement of voting machines in five states. However, the Supreme Court had dismissed a request seeking 100 per cent matching of paper trail slips with the electronic voting machines during counting and calls it nonsense.
DMK leader M Kanimozhi said she saw voting machines being moved in Thoothukudi district. On the other hand, the Mumbai Congress chief Milind Deora wrote to the election body chief in Maharashtra, demanding that the strong and strict vigilance around the storage rooms and also asked to share passwords of the CCTV cameras with the candidates so that they too can monitor the situation.
Many Congress candidates like Sanjay Nirupam (Mumbai North West candidate) and workers in Assam visited the counting centres and kept vigil in Goregaon East and Kamrup respectively. Also, Shashi Tharoor, the Congress lawmaker from Thiruvananthapuram is expected to visit a storeroom for voting machines in the city today.
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