Candidates express doubts over safety of EVMs

Srikakulam: Depositing of Electronic Voting Machines after polling at strongrooms became an issue in Srikakulam district. Due to lack of planning by officials, traffic chaos witnessed on National Highway 16 for a 10 kms distance all along the night.

In all, 20 rooms have been allotted in a private engineering college at Chilakapalem near Srikakulam city. Only one route was identified and allowed for entry and exit of buses and other vehicles could carry polling material and staff.

Due to single route, entry of vehicles in short time and the traffic snarls started from mid-night of Thursday, continued till Friday morning. Polling officials who were in the vehicles faced trouble and went into slept position after mid-night.

In this backdrop, the safety of EVMs in question as staff went into helpless position. "We had been stranded in our bus due to traffic jam till morning from Thursday mid-night and we were in a fear about EVMs safety," said some presiding officers SVN Murthy, Ch Nagabhusan Rao, B Satish Kumar, K Appala Raju and others. However, the EVMs were kept in strong rooms by Friday evening.