The first phase of voting for 91 Lok Sabha seats and assembly elections in four states witnessed several complaints of malfunctioning electronic voting and paper trail machines, several voters claiming their names were missing from the electoral rolls, and the indelible ink mark on the index finger of voters being not so indelible in some cases.

EVM malfunctions were reported from all districts of Andhra Pradesh, eight Lok Sabha constituencies that went to vote in western Uttar Pradesh, the northern-eastern states of Assam and Arunachal, and Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Odisha. Voters in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Noida and Ghaziabad complained of their names not being in the list. And some showed on social media how easily they removed the indelible ink mark.

While the BJP did not comment on these issues, Congress spokesperson Pranav Jha said missing names and malfunctioning EVMs were a matter of concern and could result in the formation of “illegitimate governments”. “We have repeatedly raised the issue of problem with the EVMs with the Election Commission, but nothing much has happened,” Jha said.

Andhra chief electoral officer Gopala Krishna Dwivedi was not able to vote because of an EVM malfunction. Jana Sena Party candidate Madhusudan Gupta was held after he smashed an EVM in Guntakal, alleging that party symbols were not properly printed on the ballot unit.

Dwivedi said polling did not commence till 9 am at some places in Anantapur, Guntur, Kadapa and Kurnool due to EVM trouble even as chief minister Chandrababu Naidu expressed concern over failure of “30%” of EVMs and said he was contemplating filing a review petition in Supreme Court over counting of slips in at least 25% of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines in every assembly constituency. The Supreme Court recently ruled that such audits would be conducted in five booths in every assembly constituency in a Parliamentary constituency.

In western Uttar Pradesh, candidates of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Bijnore, Meerut, Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar lodged complaints of EVM and paper trail malfunctions to the election officers, which caused delays in the start of polling.

National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah posted a video of the presiding officer from Poonch area explaining the malfunctioning of an EVM. In Uttarakhand, 330 VVPATS and 82 EVMs were replaced because of malfunctions, the state chief electoral officer said in a statement. In Bengal, poll officers admitted EVM problems in some polling stations. In Arunachal, EVMs were damaged by miscreants in 10 polling booths, the state election office said.

Former chief election commissioner HS Brahma said there is nothing abnormal with glitches in EVMs, with 1% of the machines usually facing problems, but the EC provides a quick replacement.

An EC official said polling officers had been instructed to look into complaints of malfunctioning EVMs, but added that in most cases the machines are quickly replaced.

Voters name missing

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter and tagged people who claimed their names or the names of their relatives had been deleted from voter lists. “What is happening EC? Are these elections fair?” Kejriwal asked, claiming that anti-BJP votes were deleted from electoral rolls all over India.

Businessperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s mother was one of those whose name was deleted.

“I feel cheated as a citizen. Does my vote not count?” asked vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospital Shobana Kamineni, after she found her name missing from a polling booth in Masab Tank in Hyderbad. Her brother Vishweshwar Reddy Konda is contesting on a Congress ticket from Chevella Lok Sabha seat in Telangana.

Mussoorie resident Anupreet Prakash, 25, who came from Chandigarh to cast his vote, expressed his disappointment. “I had come all the way from Chandigarh, where I study, but was utterly upset on finding my name not in the list,” he said. Deepak Kumar Gautam was among several people who tweeted about their names not being in the voters list.

Commenting on these deletions in electoral rolls, a senior official of the Election Commission who asked not to be named said the onus is on the voters to verify if their names are on the list. “There are many avenues for doing this, including a toll-free number,” he said. The official also said names cannot be added to the voters list after the last date of filing of nominations.

Brahma said this is an issue which the election watchdog should look into so that the problem can be minimised in the remaining six phases.

Vanishing ink

The biggest controversy, however, concerned the indelible ink, marked on the index fingers of voters to ensure they do not cast their votes again. Many people on Thursday claimed that the “indelible” ink applied to mark the index finger of the voter just before casting of vote came away easily.

Ritu Kapur, the founder and chief executive officer of The Quint, tweeted photographs of her finger before and after applying nail polish remover on the ink mark on it. “I voted. I got inked. I did not believe the people who said that indelible ink is washing off. So I tried nail polish remover -- and magic -- the mark is gone,” she tweeted. A Hindustan Times editor was able to remove his with a wet wipe.

There were several tweets tagging @SpokespersonECI with pictures of the index finger without the ink.

The EC, which has ordered 2.6 million bottles of indelible ink from the state-owned Mysore Paints, said the ink used is certified by a Central Lab.

“A report was sought from the polling officer and it was found that the phial of the ink was certified by CSIR lab, as per procedure. We are sending the ink for further test,” said deputy election commissioner Chandra Bhushan, adding that the voters could have applied oil or cream on their hands before the ink was applied, which could have led to the ink coming off.

An official of Mysore Paints and Varnish Ltd, the company that supplies ink to be used to mark voters, said the company does not comment on social media reports and asked for complaints to be sent by e-mail. An email complaint with a video of the ink being scrubbed off within a couple of minutes was not responded to.

Former chief election commission Nasim Zaidi said that considering that the ink is used to prevent impersonation or the possibility of multiple voting, the issue should be examined. “They should see if there are complaints of anyone rubbing off the ink to vote more than once, in that case electoral rules can be invoked to file FIRs (first information reports),” he said.

(With agency inputs)

First Published: Apr 11, 2019 23:51 IST