PANAJI/MAPUSA: An exercise of the magnitude of the Lok Sabha polls and the simultaneous Assembly bypolls to three constituencies held on Tuesday and involving over a million voters to pass off incident free would be asking for a miracle.
And as per expectations, there were moments of tension as polling officers faced instances of glitches in EVMs in some locations in North Goa.
For instance in Siolim-Sodiem, in the polling station at Holy Cross School, Sodiem an EVM malfunction sent election officials scurrying after its VVPAT machine refused to print the symbol of the candidate/party the voter chose.
Instead it was printing generic symbols such as alpha, beta and gamma, Chief Electoral Officer Kunal, IAS, told the media.
The snag was detected only at around 8.30 am, after a good 69 people had already cast their votes.
Officials briefly halted polling and replaced the ‘faulty’ machine with a stand-by one and resumed voting in the booth in 45 minutes.
