Shah seat: Video shows bogus voting, probe on

Manas Dasgupta
Ahmedabad, April 24

The Gujarat election authorities ordered an inquiry today after complaints of bogus voting in BJP chief Amit Shah’s Gandhinagar constituency created a political storm.

A video viral on the social media shows a person, a BJP leader in the Ahmedabad district panchayat, repeatedly pressing button of the EVM machine to register votes for absentee voters. The video was said to be of Bankupura village booth in Bavla taluka in Ahmedabad district falling in Gandhinagar constituency.

As soon as the video went viral, worried BJP leaders took turns to deny the allegations claiming that it was an “old video” and had nothing to do with the current election. The Ahmedabad district collector and returning officer for the seat also claimed that the video “looked old”.

A Congress worker, agent of the party candidate for the seat in the booth, recorded the video and released it on the social media. He said he was prepared to provide all evidences to prove that the video was genuine and was shot yesterday during the polling. The video shows the person telling the polling agents to wait till 5.30 pm after which they should cast the votes for all the remaining voters registered in the booth. The Congress pointed out that there was no question of asking the officials to wait till 5.30 pm if the video was old one as it was only the first time in the current Lok Sabha elections that the polling time was extended by one hour till 6 pm due to summer heat.

The complaints of bogus voting were also received from the Banaskantha Lok Sabha and Manavadar state Assembly constituency, where bypoll was held. A video of the Manavadar constituency showed some ruffians wielding lathis and hockey sticks chasing away the voters coming to vote at the polling booths telling them that their votes had been cast. “Go away, polling is over, your votes have been cast,” the goons were heard telling voters. Preliminary inquiry into one of the videos which went viral Tuesday evening suggested that there was no bogus voting.

Meanwhile, the polling figure released by the EC today put the final polling at 64.11 per cent in Gujarat, marginally ahead of 63.89 per cent voting recorded in 2014. The highest turnout of 75.21 per cent was recorded in Bulsar seat in south Gujarat, while the lowest was in Amreli in the Saurashtra region where only 55.75 per cent of the voters turned up. Gandhinagar recorded 65.37 per cent turnout. (With PTI inputs)

Oppn seeks repoll

• CJ Chavda, Congress candidate from Gandhinagar, has submitted a memorandum to the EC, demanding re-polling in all booths in Bankupura village of Bavla taluka in Ahmedabad
• Incidentally, all booths in the area registered more than 90% polling, raising doubts about genuineness of the voting