Tumane sure of victory, Gajbhiye wary of EVMs

Nagpur: With hours left for the vote count to start, Shiv Sena candidate from Ramtek (reserved) Lok Sabha constituency Krupal Tumane was confident of retaining the seat while his rival Kishor Gajbhiye of the Congress nursed grave apprehensions over possible tampering of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) to skew the results.
Both candidates, along with their party workers were, however, happy that on Thursday the gripping 40-day-long suspense would finally end.
Voting for this seat was held in the very first phase on April 11. The EVMs in which their electoral fate was sealed were safely deposited and kept under heavy security at the Kalamna APMC market. This time around, the counting process could suffer heavy delays because of the new norms.
“In 2014, I won by a margin of 1.75 lakh votes against a much stronger Congress candidate Mukul Wasnik. Though no one could sense it, the Modi wave was there this time too. This besides the full support I got from the BJP-Sena workers who campaigned extremely hard for two weeks to ensure my win by at least 1.50 lakh votes,” said a rather relaxed Tumane.
Gajbhiye also claimed that his party and workers did give him a big boost in the campaign but was apprehensive about the impact of the exit polls. “The way exit polls projected a comfortable win for the BJP-led NDA, it seems to me that they are part of a sinister design. People and all opposition parties had doubts about EVM tampering. Now, our worst fears are confirmed,” said Gajbhiye.
His worry is that the people who overwhelmingly rejected Modi would lose faith in the electoral system if the BJP government comes back to power at the Centre.
About their plans for D Day, Gajbhiye said he would straight away head for the Kalamna counting centre early morning and stay put there till the results are out. He spent some days touring the state for party campaign in Nanded, Buldhana and Mumbai. Then he was occupied with the episode of the DVR (digital video record) theft at Umred which is part of his constituency.
Quite in contrast, Tumane intends to begin his day with daily prayers at the temple near his house in Subhedar Layout. “My polling agents would be there but I will reach Kalamna market only by the afternoon ,” said Tumane who spent most of the last month attending social functions and party meetings after a short pilgrimage to Shirdi and Shegaon.