Criminal negligence, says Akhilesh over EVM glitch; EC rejects

New Delhi, Apr 23: Terming the malfunctioning of EVMs as 'criminal negligence', Samajwadi chief Akhilesh Yadav said that the poll officers were untrained to handle the machines.

Taking to Twitter, Akhilesh tweeted,"DMs say poll officials untrained to operate EVMs. 350+ being replaced. This is criminal negligence for a polling exercise that costs 50,000 crs (sic)."

The election Commission of India (EC) has rejected the Samajwadi Party (SP)'s claim of 300 malfunctioning Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in Rampur.

The officials of EC in a statement said that there were problems in the machies in the morning but "all the issues have now been resolved".

Various states in the fray for the 3rd phase of Lok Sabha election have complained of bogus voting and EVM malfunctioning. In Kerala, there were reports that voting has stopped at Chowara booth near Kovalam in Thiruvananthapuram constituency after voters complained that the 'lotus' symbol of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lit up after they cast their vote for the Congress. EVM malfunctioning has also been reported in several polling booths across Odisha, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Assam.

Polling began in the third phase of ongoing elections began on Tuesday, April 23, in as many as 117 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 13 states and 2 Union Territories. After four hours of polling (polling for phase 3 began at 7 am), overall voter turnout recorded is 11.61 percent.