On Tuesday morning as the country voted in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, AAP tweeted about an EVM in Goa which allegedly showed unusual results to a mock polling.
The machine which had nine votes for each of the six candidates, recorded 17 votes for the BJP, nine to the Congress, eight to AAP and one for an Independent. The EVM was in the constituency of South Goa. AAP candidate Elvis Gomes said this was an “election of shame”.
The Goa CEO assured Gomes on Twitter that the matter was being examined. After half an hour, the CEO wrote that the EVM set had been replaced.
Later in the day, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav spoke about alleged malfunctioning of EVMs across the country. Speaking to reporters in Saifai, Yadav said that he heard about several incidents involving EVMs.
“In Rampur, machines didn’t work on a large scale. More than 300 of them. Some in Mainpuri too. Wherever there are elections in the country, machines are malfunctioning,” said Akhilesh.
He alleged that the entire Uttar Pradesh administration is involved in this deceit. “Digital India ki baat karne wale log kyun machine kharab kar rahe hain (Why are people who talked about Digital India busy rigging machines),” Yadav said. He tweeted:
Akhilesh shared screenshots on reports of malfunctioning EVMs - Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, Belagavi from Karnataka and an instance in Goa. In another screenshot, Akhilesh also shared the names of several places in Uttar Pradesh - Chandausi, Rampur, Firozabad, Bareilly and Jaswant Nagar - where the chief election officer of the state had spoken about reports on malfunctioning EVMs.
This website texted Election Commission spokesperson Sheyphali Sharan, saying that there were allegations that EVMs were rigged to favour the BJP and does the Election Commission accept these allegations. Also, what was done as corrective action at these booths. Sharan had not responded at the time this report went live. The details, whenever shared by the Election Commission, will be updated here.
In Phase I, on April 11, a video recorded in Meerut showed that a vote given to the BSP had been registered under the BJP. The same day in Assam’s Tezpur and Meghalaya’s Shillong constituencies there were reports of allegations of votes going to the BJP irrespective of the button pressed by the voter. The Assam CEO, while responding to the reports, called it 'fake news'.
Omar Abdullah had tweeted a video that showed an EVM in which the button next to the Congress symbol wasn’t working. According to some news reports, in Andhra’s Anantapur district, 116 EVMs malfunctioned in the first phase. Fifty were replaced, the others were repaired, delaying voting by several hours.
Phase II had similar reports of “glitches”.
In Maharashtra, the Congress said it had filed 33 complaints of malfunctioning EVMs with the Election Commission. In Tamil Nadu, the CEO told the media that 384 faulty EVMs were replaced.
