Mumbai: On the very day of the Supreme Court declining a plea to bring back paper ballots for the voting process by removing electronic voting machines (EVMs), a youth in Maharashtra on Friday damaged the EVM machine with an axe at Biloli in Nanded district. The police have detained the youth and further investigation is on.
According to police, 26-year-old Bhaiyyasaheb Edke had come to cast his vote at a polling booth at Rampuri in Biloli taluka at 3:53 pm. As soon as he went in front of the EVM, he started hitting the machine with the ax, which he had hidden in his pants.
Hearing a loud noise, the election officials at the polling station rushed to the spot. There was panic at the polling booth after people saw the accused with an ax in his hand. But the police immediately detained him.
“Bhaiyyasaheb Edke is a local resident and a registered voter of Rampuri booth. He came to the polling booth to cast his vote, but damaged an EVM with an iron object. He was immediately detained and the voting process continued soon afterwards as the broken machine was replaced with a new one,” Nanded Superintendent of Police (SP) Shrikrushna Kokate said.
According to police, Yedke is an educated youth and is reported to be unemployed. He was angry that he could not get a job even with higher education.
“The man says he wants a pro-farmer and pro-labourer government in place. We are trying to find out if he is linked to any political party. He is well-educated and has done courses in law and journalism,” the SP added.
However, according to election commission officials, although the EVM machine was broken by an ax's blow, the VVPAT machine was said to be operational and the data inside it was not affected.
When the incident took place, 185 people out of total 379 voters at the polling booth had exercised their right of voting. After the incident, new EVMs and VVPAT machines were ordered and polling started again, said the officials.
The incident happened in the backdrop of the Supreme Court rejecting a batch of petitions seeking 100 percent cross-verification of vote count in EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) paper slips. It has also declined a plea to bring back paper ballots for the voting process.
