EVMs Taped To Block Votes, Scent Smeared To Find Voters: Bengal Repoll Report

The Election Commission's order for fresh voting in all the 285 polling stations in West Bengal's Falta assembly constituency came after it found a long list of offences and subversion of the democratic process, sources have said. The voting day is May 21 and counting day May 24.

The Election Commission in a communication to the Bengal chief electoral officer mentioned several irregularities including use of black tapes over buttons on ballot units to block votes.

The EC report said allegations of widespread booth-capturing came, with reports of forceful takeover of polling stations where genuine voters were prevented from voting or coerced through threats and intimidation tactics.

The report pointed at suspects applying perfume and ink on the balloting units' buttons to identify people who voted for a particular candidate.

Election observers and the returning officer confirmed that the tampering and violations had "vitiated the poll," making results unreliable and necessitating a full repoll due to the large-scale impact of the irregularities.

Many polling stations saw long gaps in coverage of video feeds, making verification impossible, while storage chips were either empty, contained unrelated election footage or showed systematic gaps during peak voting hours, the report said.

Available footage revealed multiple violations including companion voting abuse, unauthorised people entering voting compartments, polling officials guiding voters or entering booths, and multiple individuals voting together breaching secrecy norms, the report said.

It flagged repeated entries by the same individuals and polling agents to interfere or even cast votes; false voting under different identities, and a lack of corrective action by officials. All these pointed to an organised manipulation and possible bogus voting, with ground footage contradicting official action taken reports, it said.

The EC said the scale of irregularities met the legal threshold that determined loss of electronic voting machine (EVM) and ballot integrity, while extensive booth-capturing also justified action to countermand the entire election.

Following this report, the Bengal chief electoral officer formally recommended the cancellation of polling in Falta.

The report pointed at suspects applying perfume and ink on the balloting units' buttons to identify people who voted for a particular candidate.