MARGAO
The day-long process of loading symbols in the symbol loading unit in the EVMs of the four Assembly segments of Salcete taluka followed by mock polling ended up only late Sunday night.
The EVMs of the remaining four constituencies of Salcete will be taken up on Monday morning to load the symbols of the candidates in the symbol loading unit.
President of Corruption Abolition Party Sadanand Vaingainkar, who represented the party at the collectorate, took objection to that what he termed as the “faulty” process of loading of symbols in the symbol loading unit of EVMs at the district Collectorate on Sunday.
Armed with the Election Commission manual on loading of the symbols in the symbol loading unit, Vaingainkar insisted that the election officials strictly adhered to the guidelines in the manual.
Saying there were excess of engineers than the sanctioned strength, besides the engineers and police officials had come to the hall with mobile phones, Vaingainkar said this is prohibited as per the manual.
Pointing out that the engineer has prepared the program and uploaded the same in the symbol loading unit, Vaingainkar said he drew attention of the officers that they were following a wrong process, not recommended in the manual. He also insisted that the computers with a host of other files cannot be used for the loading of symbols in the unit.
“The Returning officer Asvin Chandru was called in the hall to oversee the process as per the manual,” he said adding that the actual process started around noon though it was supposed to start at around 8 am.
Vaingainkar said the Returning Officer impressed upon the officials and staff on duty to strictly go by the EC manual on the loading of symbols in the units.
Congress leader Savio Coutinho, who represented the Congress at the process, said the actual mock polling started only at around 4 pm after the loading of the symbols. “By the time the votes were counted and the VVPAT slips were counted, and the machines sealed and stored in the strong room, the entire process got over by around 10 pm,” he added.
The process of loading the symbols of the remaining four Assembly segments of Salcete taluka will be taken up in the district Collectorate on Monday.
