MCD polls: Arvind Kejriwal has accused Election Commission of not rectifying malfunctioning EVMs.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today attacked the State Election Commission claiming that reports of "faulty" EVMs were
pouring in from across the national capital on polling day.The Aam Aadmi Party chief also alleged that many voters with valid voter slips were "not allowed" to exercise their franchise in the municipal polls. Arvind Kejriwal had earlier demanded that the election be postponed till arrangements for VVPAT-equipped electronic voting machines (EVMs) were made.Former Delhi minister and BJP leader Arvind Singh Lovely also could not cast his vote early morning as there were some problems in the EVMs at the polling booth in East Azad Nagar area.
"I reached the polling station at 8 am. However, I could not vote as the EVM was not working so I had to leave due to some urgent work. I will go later to cast my vote," Mr Singh said.
There were also complaints of faulty EVMs in North Delhi Burari area and South West Delhi's Kapashera due to which voting had to be stopped for a few minutes.
"There were few complaints of the functioning of EVMs at Burari and Kapashera which has been rectified," an official source said.
Apart from this, at GTB ward, voters had to face problems as some EVMs were not functioning properly.
Some people could not vote because their names were missing from the voters list.
A State Election Commission official admitted that there were reports of "technical glitches" from a few places but added that the faults were rectified.
The VVPAT machine dispenses a slip with the symbol of the party a person has voted for. The slip drops in a box, but the voter cannot take it home. The voters, however, can see the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slip for seven seconds.
Voting for choosing municipal councillors was held at 13,000 polling stations across the national capital. Polling began at 8 am amid heavy security arrangement across the city.
Out of the 13,022 polling stations, police authorities have declared 3,284 as sensitive and 1,464 as hyper-sensitive.
Over 1.1 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise for the first time. Also, for the first time in MCD elections, None Of The Above (NOTA) option has been made available.
There are more 1.32 crore voters entitled to exercise their franchise in electing councillors for the wards falling under the three corporations - NDMC (103), SDMC (104) and EDMC (63).
Counting of votes will be held on April 26.