The Election Commission today responded to Trinamool Congress’s allegation that EVMs “with BJP tags” were used in Bankura district.
Smt. @MamataOfficial has repeatedly flagged how @BJP4India was trying to rig votes by tampering with EVMs.
And today, in Bankura’s Raghunathpur, 5 EVMs were found with BJP tags on them.@ECISVEEP should immediately look into it and take corrective action! pic.twitter.com/aJwIotHAbX
— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) May 25, 2024
Sharing two pictures of EVMs with paper tags with BJP written on them, the Mamata Banerjee-led party posted on X, “Smt. @MamataOfficial has repeatedly flagged how @BJP4India was trying to rig votes by tampering with EVMs. And today, in Bankura’s Raghunathpur, 5 EVMs were found with BJP tags on them.”
“@ECISVEEP should immediately look into it and take corrective action,” the post added.
Responding to the charge, the poll body tweeted, “While commissioning, common address tags were signed by the Candidates and their agents present. And since only BJP Candidate’s representative was present during that time in the commissioning hall, his signature was taken during commissioning of that EVM and VVPAT.”
“However, signature of all the agents present in PS No 56,58, 60, 61,62 was obtained during Poll. All the ECI norms were duly followed during commissioning was done entirely under CCTV coverage and was duly videographed,” it added.
Today is the sixth phase of the general election, with eight Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal going to polls. With 18 seats won last time, the BJP had a strong showing in the eastern state and is hoping to improve on that performance this time. Conversely, the Trinamool hopes to reclaim some of the seats it lost in the 2019 elections.
The leading contenders for these eight seats in Bengal are Debangshu Bhattacharya of the Trinamool party, who is the head of the party’s social media cell and wrote the campaign song Khela Hobe; she is a fashion designer turned politician; and Abhijit Gangopadhyay, a former judge of the Calcutta High Court.
