Kolkata, April 30 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal on Thursday dismissed Trinamool Congress’ allegations of suspicious activities with the electronic voting machine (EVM) strong-rooms at the Khudiram Anushilan Kendra in Kolkata.

Soon after Trinamool Congress supporters led by state Minister Shashi Panja and the State Trinamool Congress General Secretary Kunal Ghosh started protesting before the Khudiram Anushilan Kendra, alleging suspicious activities at the EVM strong-rooms with the intention of voting machine tampering, CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal addressed the media and rubbished the allegations of the possibilities of EVM tampering.

“The strong rooms at Khudiram Anushilan Kendra house EVMs from seven Assembly constituencies in north Kolkata. After the polling ended on Wednesday, all the strong-rooms were properly closed and sealed in the presence of the concerned candidates/election agents and observers. The last strong room was closed at 5:15 a.m. on Thursday. There is another strong room for postal ballots at Khudiram Anushilan Kendra. Postal ballots from various centres have been kept there. They were being sorted by the polling officials,” the CEO said.

He also added that the election observers and returning officers about the sorting of postal ballots and also asked the returning officers to inform the candidates and agents concerned about this exercise.

“The returning officers informed the political parties through email. The separation of postal ballots was going on in the corridors of the polling booths from 4 p.m. The sorting of these postal ballots started since 4 p.m. They are all safe, secured and locked. The representatives of both Trinamool Congress and the BJP have been shown everything,” the CEO said.

He also clarified that since electricity connections are not allowed in the strong-rooms, the segregation of the postal ballots for the seven Assembly constituencies in Kolkata were going on in torch-light, which the ruling Trinamool Congress leaders misconnected as “suspicious activities”.

Soon after the clarifications were given on this count, Ghosh and Panja announced that being satisfied by the clarification they have decided to withdraw the sit-in demonstration.

–IANS

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