Re-polling ordered in one booth of Lohaghat seat in Uttarakhand

DEHRADUN: The Election Commission has ordered repolling in one of the booths of Lohaghat Assembly seat in Uttarakhand where EVMs malfunctioned, forcing the counting to be stopped midway.

Re-polling in booth number 128, Government Inter College at Karankarayat, was ordered after the EVMs stopped displaying results due to some technical problem prompting authorities to stop counting, the state election office said here last night.

Polling will be held afresh on March 15. Counting will undertaken and the results will be declared the same evening, it said.

The poll panel has asked its state representatives to keep the documents pertaining to yesterday's counting for the Assembly seat sealed till the announcement of the booth's results.

When the EVMs stopped, BJP's Puran Singh Fartyal was ahead of his nearest rival, Congress' Khushal Singh by 450 votes.

BJP scored a massive victory in Uttarakhand winning 56 of the 70 seats in the state to storm to power, reducing Congress to minuscule minority in the state Assembly with a poor tally of 11 seats.