EVM

failure, use of wrong ink, bogus voting, cash for votes reported

Nagpur,

15 Jan (HS): The fate of 15,908 candidates in fray for 2,869 seats in 29

municipal corporations in Maharashtra have been sealed in EVMs on Thursday. The

counting of votes will begin at 10 am on January 16.

The

voting for municipal corporations were held after a delay of about seven years.

The elections were marred by failure of EVMs and violence in many parts of the

Maharashtra State. Problems relating to EVM failure, violence, missing names in

the electoral lists were reported from Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Dhule, Chhatrapati

Sambhajinagar, Panvel, Chandrapur, Bhiwandi, Jalgaon, Solapur etc.

Meanwhile,

Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray levelled allegations against the State

Election Commission and the BJP-led Mahayuti. The allegations were related to

using ink which can be easily washed and possibility of double voting.

In

Jalgaon air fire rattled the residents and also the police personnel. The

firing was out of personal dispute and not related to elections.

In

Pune voting was recorded against the name of an individual who is in Yerwada

Jail. Workers of various parties raised strong objections against the bogus

voting. At another polling booth a woman had to register ‘Tender Vote’ as

someone had already voted in her name.

In

Amravati Shiv Sena workers were engaged in heated arguments as EVM did not

start and was not replaced immediately. Police intervened to pacify the irate

workers.

In

some polling booths the EVM had marked names of the wards in reverse order –

DCBA, instead of ABCD.

In

Chandrapur a voters used mobile phone to video shoot the EVM to show the names

against him he pressed the voting button.

A

video relating to distribution of cash went viral in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

to vote in favour of ‘Bow and Arrow (Shiv Sena Symbol). Those who noticed the

malpractice have informed the police and the election officers.

Reports of bogus voters were also noticed in some

parts of Maharashtra.

In Nagpur some anti-social elements vandalised two

booths of Congress in Martin Nagar area of North Nagpur. Those vandalised the

booths were riding two motorcycles. Onlookers have recorded the number plates

of the bikes and informed the police.

In

some parts long queues were seen towards the end of polling time. The exact

figures of voting percentage will be known late in the night.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Ajay Vasant Mardikar