As the political scene shifted from Karnataka to bye-elections across nine states on Monday, reports of malfunctioning EVMs and tampering kicked off a fresh round of slugfest between the BJP and the opposition. Samajwadi Party alleged that BJP had tampered with EVMs in Kairana and Noorpur to avenge its embarrassing defeat in Phulpur and Gorakhpur bypolls earlier in the year, while several voters were left in the lurch after polling was temporarily halted in at least 35 booths in Maharashtra’s Bhandara-Gondiya Lok Sabha bye-elections on Monday.
Rubbishing the reports as an “exaggerated projection of reality”, the Election Commission said it allocated sufficient reserve EVMs and VVPATs for every general and bye-elections. “It is pertinent to mention that an adequate number of reserve EVMs and VVPATs (around 20-25%) are prepared to replace any defective machine on the poll day at the polling station,” the poll watchdog said in a press release.

As the political scene shifted from Karnataka to bye-elections across nine states on Monday, reports of malfunctioning EVMs and tampering kicked off a fresh round of slugfest between the BJP and the opposition. Samajwadi Party alleged that BJP had tampered with EVMs in Kairana and Noorpur to avenge its embarrassing defeat in Phulpur and Gorakhpur bypolls earlier in the year, while several voters were left in the lurch after polling was temporarily halted in at least 35 booths in Maharashtra’s Bhandara-Gondiya Lok Sabha bye-elections on Monday.
Rubbishing the reports as an “exaggerated projection of reality”, the Election Commission said it allocated sufficient reserve EVMs and VVPATs for every general and bye-elections. “It is pertinent to mention that an adequate number of reserve EVMs and VVPATs (around 20-25%) are prepared to replace any defective machine on the poll day at the polling station,” the poll watchdog said in a press release.