Lotus blooms in Kasaragod mock poll; SC instructs election commission to investigate

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday intervened in the complaint that the voting machine recorded excess votes for the BJP in the mock poll conducted in the Kasaragod constituency ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to immediately conduct an inquiry into the incident.

In the complaint, it is mentioned that almost four machines recorded votes in favour of the BJP candidate. Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan brought the issue to the court’s attention while considering a petition regarding VVPATs.

The Supreme Court also directed the Election Commission's lawyer to investigate the issue. The court also asked the counsel to explain what procedures are in place to ensure that there is no tampering in the process related to voting machines.

Earlier, voting agents of LDF and UDF candidates raised complaints regarding BJP getting extra votes in the mock poll. They also filed a complaint with district collector Inbasekar Kalimuthu. All 190 voting machines were checked in the first round of mock polls. 20 machines are published at a time. There are ten options to cast a vote in a machine. Even after separately pressing each option only one at a time, it was clear that the BJP received two votes from four machines.

Even when the BJP's symbol was not clicked, a vote was recorded in the party's account. Following this, the agents demanded that these machines be replaced.