Shifting of machines delayed, says Bains

Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, May 20

Lok Insaaf Party candidate Simarjeet Singh Bains has accused the returning officer of “mismanagement” in storage of voting machines after the Lok Sabha elections. He has alleged that the shifting of EVMs from the polling stations to the strong rooms was delayed.

Bains complained to the Chief Electoral Officer of Punjab in this regard. He alleged that the staff on election duty submitted the machines in their constituency at a particular station after the polls instead of taking them directly to the strong room.

“The machines were counted and sealed in boxes. These were then loaded on to trucks at 3 am from particular stations and brought to the counting centres at PAU. There was a great security risk in transferring the voting machines after midnight. The strong room was finally locked at 9 am on Monday,” he said.

“The employees on election duty were engaged in the process from 5 am on Sunday till 9 am on Monday. The party workers faced a lot of harassment due to mismanagement on the part of the returning officer,” he alleged.

“Had machines been shifted directly to the counting centres where they were finally kept in the strong room, a lot of time, labour, expenses would have been saved. It is a serious lapse on the part of the returning officer and he may be held liable, and the entire wasteful expenditure may be recovered from him,” he said.

Denying the allegations, District Election Officer Pradeep Kumar Agrawal said the process of depositing the voting machines was done as per rules. The similar procedure was followed in other districts too, he said.

“The polling staff was asked to deposit machines at the same centres from where they had collected election material and machines. If the staff on election duty were asked to reach PAU to deposit machines, they might have faced inconvenience. It is very easy for anyone to level allegations. But, we did our job in the right manner,” he said.