the goan I network
PANAJI
Chief Electoral Officer Kunal, IAS, in a press release issued in Friday clarified that during the mock poll on Election day in polling station (PS 31) at Cuncolim in South Goa constituency, the machine was found to be faulty and replaced. But the 17 votes through the faulty machine were recorded in favour of Indian National Congress candidate Francisco Sardinha and not in favour of the BJP candidate as was reported.
District election officer and returning officer were asked to conduct an inquiry of the episode after the news of faulty voting machine went viral on social media and was also reported in mainstream media, Kunal said.
He clarified that the information regarding the mock drill is misleading and factually incorrect.
“EVM was found to be malfunctioning due to which it was replaced with a completely new set of EVM and VVPAT from the reserve pool,” Kunal said.
“It is abundantly clarified that the allegation of 17 votes being cast for BJP candidate during the first mock poll by the defective machine is completely false, misleading and factually incorrect. Infact during the said mock drill 17 votes were recorded in favour of the Indian National Congress (INC) candidate,” the statement issued by Kunal said.
Polling at this polling station was conducted with the replaced EVM and VVPAT set in which mock poll was carried out accurately in the presence of polling agents and a perfect match between the CU result and the VVPAT slips, Kunal added.
It may be recalled that several glitches in the EVMs were reported across the State during the polling, EVMs were found malfunctioning at Ambaulim, Nuvem, Verna, Fatrade, Betul etc in the South. There were also reports of EVM malfunction in Mapusa, Harvalem and other places in North Goa. The machines were however promptly replaced and polling continued.
