The Election Commission stated today that a senior administrative official of Varanasi will be suspended as a punitive measure for moving Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) out of schedule. The Samajwadi Party’s chief Akhilesh Yadav and alliance member OP Rajbhar had raised this issue yesterday, alleging that it was done at the behest of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Other than this, irregularities are also being alleged in the process of postal voting.
Varanasi Additional District Magistrate NK Singh has been suspended along with SDM’s of Bareilly and Sonbhadra. District Magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma told media that Singh will be suspended because the ‘training EVMs’ were moved in the night instead of the slated time in the morning. Singh ha been appointed as a nodal officer in the city.
Varanasi Commissioner Deepak Agarwal apparently admitted that there was a breach of “protocol” in the matter, in a video posted by the Samajwadi Party to social media. The party has stated that it is ready to go to court over the matter.
Similarly, SDM of Sonbhadra and the district election officer of Bareilly have been removed. Ghorawal (Sonbhadra) SDM Ramesh Kumar has been replaced with Shyam Pratap Singh for election duties. Baheri (Bareilly) Shivakant Dwivedi has been replaced by Rajesh Chandra afterpostal ballots were found in a garbage truck.
The controversy erupted after Samajwadi Party workers intercepted a truck allegedly ‘stealing’ EVM’s. It was later ‘clarified’ by the UP Chief Election Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla that the EVMs were being moved as part of “training”
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