AAP votes 'jammed'

Kochi: Polling in an election booth in Ernakulam constituency that was stopped as the voting machine there was getting 'jammed' when Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) votes were being cast, resumed after two hours, after the machine was replaced. AAP's agents in booth number 118 at Kalamassery polytechnic college noted that the voting machine was jammed when AAP votes are being cast. Soon AAP workers staged a protest in front of the booth alleging sabotage through rigging of the voting machine.

As the AAP activists continued with the protest, polling in the booth was interrupted at 10.15am when only 360 of the 1,172 voters assigned to the booth had voted. During the protest, AAP alleged that the machine failed to record AAP votes and they demanded a re-polling at booth number 118. AAP's Ernakulam candidate Anita Pratap, who is a journalist and a writer, also visited the polling booth after coming to know about the 'jamming' and joined the protest.

Expressing concern over the incidents of the voting machine getting jammed when her name and symbol 'broom' are being pressed, the AAP candidate Anita Pratap wondered whether it was a pattern, "We have asked for a re-poll as the polling was stopped almost one hour after the machine had jammed. A similar incident happened in Bharat Mata College but in that booth, the machine was changed immediately," she added.

Anita said, "A lot of students had joined AAP in Kalamassery and we are sure that many of them tried to vote for me and since the button was jammed, would probably have voted for somebody else." Polling at the booth was resumed after election officials on duty replaced the voting machine with another one, after a two-hour break, without any 'jamming' of AAP votes this time.