EVM glitches, missing votes raise hackles
Malakpet: With complaints of glitches in EVMs and missing votes, scores of voters remain stranded near the polling booths. While some of them blamed technical issues others alleged that officials deliberated removed the voters from the list. In Malakpet, 148 booth some of the women and even elderly stood in the queue for hours even as the officials struggled to fix the problem. They regretted the delay as private employees and those who wish to attend the Friday prayers were stranded. “We thought of voting early in the morning and remain stranded here for almost one and half hour. Even the machine started working, but stopped after about dozen voters voted. Unfortunately we continued standing,” said one of the female voter.
Meanwhile in Goshamahal, the voters who could not find their names alleged that the officials at the behest of ruling TRS had deleted their votes. The families started protesting outside the polling booths as they could not avail their franchise. B Kurmaiah, one of the voters said that he has been living in the area for more than 10 years and questioned as to how the names of his entire family was missing. “This is nothing but KCR’s tyranny which did not allow the genuine voters to vote. Even we could not find our names online,” he said. Some others alleged that the KCR who was allied with MIM had ensured that the incumbent lose the election. They demanded repolling for Goshamahal. “Out of 10 only 1 vote could be found,” felt another voter.
Similar situation was seen Jiyaguda in Karwan constituency, where it was found that some 30 machines failed to work. The BJP candidate, Amar Singh vents his anxiety and threatened to smash the machines, if they do not work. Later he said that he would be demanding re-poll in the constituency. In Yakutpura, there were complaints that the officials engaged only one constable in each of the polling station to manage the crowd. No preceding officer was there in some of the polling booths for checking the identity cards.