BENGALURU: As voting is under way for the Assembly election, there were several instances of glitches in electronic voting machines (EVMs), thus delaying polling, and voters finding their names missing from the electoral rolls.
At booth 337 in Anekal, an EVM would not switch on and later showed as invalid. Election officials arrived later and fixed the issue. This led to delay in the of voting. At booth 82 at the St Peter’s Church in Chamarajpet, an EVM was not working and was later fixed by the officials. Similar issues were reported at booth 358 in Hegganahalli where the EVM and VVPAT machines showed technical error.
At booth 170 at the Narayan School polling station in Ayyappa Nagar, Mahadevapura, voters waited for long as the EVM was not functioning. The voters vented their ire at the officials saying that checks should have been done earlier itself.
Meanwhile, a young woman, Meghana, came from the US to cast her vote at a polling station in Basavanagudi. In Jayanagar, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrived with her uncle and aunt to cast their votes. At the BES polling station, Supreme Court judge Justice Aravind Kumar, who had arrived from Delhi, cast his vote in Jayanagar along with his family members.
In Bommanahalli, BJP candidate Satish Reddy’s mother arrived in a wheelchair and cast her vote at booth 256. In Rajajinagar, former minister S Suresh Kumar’s aged mother voted for him and said it could be her last election and added that she has been voting from 1952.
The saga of missing voters’ names continued to haunt in this election too. A couple at the Narayana School polling station at Ayyappa Nagar in Mahadevapura found that their names were not on the voters’ list. Though they had voter ID cards, they were not allowed to vote. They left in a huff after officials refused to allow them to cast their votes.
In Jayanagar, a young woman expressed her anger over her name beign deleted from the voters’ list. In Rajarajeshwari Nagar too, more than 20 voters returned without voting at booth 293, Nagarbhavi 2nd Stage, as their names were missing from the electoral rolls. In some cases, where there were 5-6 people in a household, names of 2-3 people were missing.
At the Renuka Public School in Nagarbhavi, a couple found that the wife’s name was on the electoral roll, but not the husband’s. Many voters raised a hue and cry and their names were missing from the voters’ list. In another instance, a husband and wife were allotted different booths. While the husband voted in booth 186, the wife voted in booth 188.
Congress candidate Byrathi Suresh took a supporter of the JD(S) candidate to task for seeking votes at the polling station at Presidency School in R T Nagar. “You are violating rules by seeking votes at the polling station. Don’t indulge in rowdyism here”, Suresh told the JD(S) supporter.
At the BNM College polling station in Padmanabha Nagar, voters took BJP’s Bangalore South candidate M Krishnappa to task after he jumped the queue. The voters pulled him back and questioned how he jumped the queue and told him he should have come earlier to vote. Following this, Krishnappa apologised to the voters with folded hands.