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CEO issues clarification, says faulty EVM polled votes for Congress, not BJP

CEO issues clarification, says faulty EVM polled votes for Congress, not BJP

Panaji, Apr 26 (UNI) Goa Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Kunal on Friday clarified that news reports that a malfunctioning Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at a South Goa Lok Sabha constituency had cast erroneously 17 votes in four of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during a mock-poll on April 23 was false and in fact the unaccounted votes were credited to the Congress.
In a statement, Kunal termed the reports “false, malicious and motivated” and said “..it is abundantly clarified that the allegation of 17 votes being cast for BJP candidate during the first mock-poll with the defective machine is completely false, misleading and factually not correct.'
'In fact, during the said mock-poll, 17 votes were recorded in favour of the Indian National Congress Cosme Francisco Caitano Sardinha,” he said.
Claiming that the EVMs and the VVPAT machines were replaced immediately and polling was conducted using new equipment from a reserve pool, the CEO said the political parties, candidates and general public were hereby informed that during the mock poll the EVM was found to be malfunctioning, due to which it was replaced with a completely new set from the reserve pool.
“The polling at this polling station was conducted with this replaced set of EVM and VVPAT, in which the mock poll was carried out accurately in the presence of polling agents, with perfect match between the control unit result and the VVPAT slips. Further, the polling was conducted peacefully during the day without any complaint in the polling station,” he said.
A controversy had erupted on polling day for Lok Sabha elections after Aam Adami Party (AAP) South Goa candidate had tweeted about malfunctioning of EVM and demanded a mock-poll at polling station 31 in Cuncolim Assembly constituency in South Goa.
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