Hyderabad: Rejecting the charges as baseless that the EVMs were tampered with and several lakhs of votes were deleted, Chief Electoral officer Dr Rajath Kumar today maintained that there was no truth in the charges and the electioneering was totally peaceful. The entire election process was conducted successfully and there was no untoward incident during the period, Rajat Kumar claimed.
Speaking to the media at the Secretariat on the last day of the election code of conduct, Rajat Kumar said with the support of Chief Secretary SK Joshi, DGP Mahender Reddy and other officials, the polls for the 119 Assembly segments in Telangana were conducted peacefully. He refuted the charges that the EVMs were tampered with in favour of the ruling TRS. “Earlier, we have conducted several rounds of meetings with the political parties and explained them about the functioning of the EVMs and VVPATS. The CEO said there were deletion of votes in hundreds and thousands and not in lakhs as being charged by some disgruntled political parties. These comments are totally baseless and incorrect.
Responding to a query, Rajat Kumar categorically said the allegations of EVMs tampering and deletion of 20 lakh voters’ names was totally incorrect. As per the process, the EC has removed some 26 lakh votes which were duplicate, wrong, shifted and died and enrolled 20 lakh voters afresh in the voters list. The EC has taken steps with regard to mob polling after checking the veracity with voting register. It is the responsibility of the citizens to check their names in the list and the missing voters and also the new voters to enroll their names in the electoral list online without fail. The polls were held peacefully as per EC guidelines.
[source_without_link]NSS[/source_without_link]