Re-polling will be held in problematic polling stations: CEO Dwivedi

Amaravati: The Chief Electoral Officer Gopal Krishna Dwivedi explained that the issue of conducting repolling or adjourning the polling for some polling booths is under consideration. After the conclusion of polling, the CEO addressed a press conference at Secretariat at Velagapudi on Thursday and reacted on the complaints lodged by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and on the violent incidents which happened during the polling.

Roughly estimating about 80 per cent polling by the end of polling, he said that 66 per cent votes polled till 5 pm. He said that though the polling was concluded by 6 p.m sharply, they have allowed the voters to cast their votes even after that time, who reached the polling stations before the scheduled time. He said that at such places, the polling continued till 8 p.m.

Accepting the failures of the Election Commission in conducting elections in peaceful and fair manner, Dwivedi said that there were 25 incidents which involved clashes, stone pelting and other cases in which two died and some others injured. The issue of repolling or adjournment of polling is under active consideration at such polling stations, he said.

He said that based on the ground reality, guidelines and on certain parameters, they will decide what to do in such cases. He said that the observers came from ECI will participate in the scrutiny of all the polling booths on Friday by 11 a.m. After the scrutiny, the ECI will announce for which polling booths re-polling or adjournment of polling is needed.

Dwivedi explained that, repolling means conducting the polling again and adjournment of polling means continuing the polling from where it was stopped on the previous day.

CEO moots action against inefficient polling staff As the public and political parties expressed dissatisfaction and anger against the failure of ECI in conducting elections effectively and pointed out at the failure of EVMs at certain areas, which led to delay in conducting elections - Dwivedi said that he will instruct the District Collectors to find out the staff who failed to conduct the elections smoothly.

He accepted that despite giving three times training to them, some officials failed to solve the problems during the elections. About 380 EVMs have been replaced, he said. Due to delay in replacing EVMs and technical problems, the voters faced inconvenience, he accepted. He said that there were six incidents, where the EVMs were damaged in the violence and action to be taken on the accused persons.

Reacting to a question on increase of violence in the state, he said that despite their request, the ECI did not send sufficient security personnel. There was no incident noticed in the entire Extremism affected areas of North Andhra, but violence was witnessed in Rayalaseema.