Congress EVM manipulation alert to polling agents

Hyderabad: In order to prevent manipulation of electronic voting machines, the Congress has taken several precautions and instructed the polling agents to be alert during the polling and shifting of EVMs to the strong rooms.

It has issued several instructions to the polling agents on the precautions to be taken during the polling to be held on Thursday. The candidates have also been sensitised about the manipulations.

It may be recalled here that the Congress had alleged that the EVMs had been tampered with to tilt the results in favour of the ruling TRS during the Assembly elections. The party candidates who fought Assembly polls filed cases in the courts in this regard.

Therefore, the party has decided not to give any room to the manipulations in the Parliament elections and has given instructions to its polling agents. The Congress leaders believe that the manipulation of EVMs had taken place before and after the polling during the Assembly elections. Those involved in the manipulations had put the votes before the beginning of the polling in some constituencies.

The rigging of votes had also taken place after the polling, the said. The EVMs are taken to some places before they are deposited in the strong rooms. As the agents did not check the sealing of ballot units, the manipulation had taken place.

This was the reason for inordinate delay in announcing the poll percentage. The EC took about 29 hours after the end of the polling to announce the final polling percentage of the Assembly elections.

PCC general secretary MA Faheem issued several instructions to the polling agents who would be present in the polling booths on behalf of the candidates. He said that the agents will have to reach the booths one hour before the start of polling and give the party letter to the polling officer.

They must observe mock polling carefully and note down the votes polled to each and every symbol and cross check the votes during the mock counting. They should check whether polling staff pressed the clear button or not and also check the seals on EVMs and VVPATs carefully.

The agents must ensure that the polling staff and agents of other parties should not to touch the EVMs at any cost during the polling period. Polling staff should not help the people who are not in a position to cast their votes. Those require help have to come to the polling station with their own aides.

Agents have to tick the names of the voters who voted in their voter list and they have to check the number with polling staff whenever the number of votes polled is announced. They have to check whether polling staff pressed the closing button or not after end of the polling and write down the number mentioned on the seal.

Agents will have to sign on the seal along with polling staff. They must check whether the batteries of the EVMs have been removed or not. The EVMs will be sealed with lacquer (lakka) after wrapping them in a cloth.

The agents have the right to put their own symbol on the seal to check whether the same EVM has been brought to the counting station.They agent should identify fake voters by checking the voter list and they should not leave the polling booth till the EVMs are taken to the strong rooms.