NEW DELHI/PUNE: Voting began for the 121 Lok Sabha seats in the fifth phase of polling Thursday morning as election officials report impressive turn outs all over.
However, polling was stalled for some time in Pune as an electronic voting machine functioned erratically, transferring votes to the Congress. Alert voters brought it to the notice of the poll officials who stopped the exercise immediately.
As per a report in the Times of India, electors were bewildered to see a machine “transferred” all votes to the Congress at a polling booth at Shamrao Kalmadi School in Pune when voters found that whichever button was pressed on the EVM, only the Congress light blinked.
“The Election Commission authorities have ordered a new machine for this particular polling booth which is expected to come soon,” said local BJP activist Madhur Sahasrabuddhe.
The poll panel has also decided to permit around 28 voters who had already cast their votes with the defective EVM, to vote afresh.
Among the the 1,769 candidates trying their luck today are Nandan Nilekani, Union Ministers Veerappa Moily and Srikant Jena from Congress, Maneka Gandhi of BJP, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda (JD-S), Supriya Sule (NCP) and Lalu Prasad’s eldest daughter Misa Bharti from RJD.
An electorate of 16.61 crore are expected to cast their votes in the 121 seats out of which Congress had won 36 in 2009 as 40 went to BJP. With a strong Modi wave, the saffron party hopes to gain massively in this round.
Among all the states which go to polls today are Karnataka 28, Rajasthan 20, Maharashtra 19, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha 11 each, Madhya Pradesh 10, Bihar 7, Jharkhand 6, West Bengal 4, Chhattisgarh 3, Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur one each.
