The counting of votes turned out to be too difficult a task to manage for the officials of the District Administration. Few Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) which were used for mayoral elections were opened inadvertently during the counting of votes that led to the delay in the declaration of results.
“We will recommend strong action against officials,” said State Election Commissioner, SD Sharma adding “I will even recommend suspension of those found guilty.” However, Sharma said that the incident might have happened due to wrong pasting of address tag on the
EVMs. “The person who has done pasting would have pasted the tag of mayor on the EVMs used for ward elections,” added Sharma.
Significantly, Sharma assured that opening up of EVMs used for mayoral polls will not affect the results of ward councillors in any manner and that they will ensure that the results are declared as soon as possible.
Earlier, the Krishi Bazaar at Pandra was turned into a fortress to ease the counting of votes. Ward candidates and their supporters started flocking the place before the scheduled time.
Amid heavy security all the EVMs were taken to their respective counting areas, which were secured to allow entry only to ward candidates, to ascertain the number of votes stored against each symbol. Around 1, 830 EVMs containing votes for ward candidates were opened for counting by officials deputed at the Pandra Bazaar. However, counting of mayoral votes could not begin due to SEC directives against counting in the wake of cash recovered in a city hotel a day before Ranchi went for polls.