Congress knocks Election Commission door after Tarun Gogoi raises alarm over faulty EVMs

NEW DELHI: Congress has sought a comprehensive check of the EVMs after Assam CM Tarun Gogoi alleged that a malfunctioning device cast a vote for the BJP every time the Congress party symbol was selected.

A delegation of Congress workers, led by Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, raised the demand with the EC on Thursday. “The faulty EVM in Jorhat, in which votes cast for the ‘hand’ were registered under the ‘lotus’ is a serious matter,” Union minister Anand Sharma told reporters at the party headquarters.

A senior EC official said: “The entire purpose of the mock polling exercise is to identify faulty machines. This happens sometimes and the faulty machines are promptly removed. We’ve checked with our officers in Assam and this has been done in this case as well.”