Two Electronic Voting Machines and two Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail machines were found at a hotel in Muzaffarpur, Bihar while voting for Lok Sabha elections in Muzaffarpur constituency was under way on Monday, Hindustan Times reported.
Muzaffarpur District Magistrate Alok Ranjan Ghosh has served a show cause notice to Sector Magistrate Avdesh Kumar, who was in charge of the machines, for negligence, according to The Times of India.
Ghosh said the machines found at the hotel were reserve machines that were to be used to replace faulty machines during polling. “Sector officer was given some reserved machines so that it could be replaced with faulty ones,” ANI quoted Ghosh as saying. “After replacing EVMs he was left with two balloting units, one control unit and two VVPATs in his car.”
Ghosh said a departmental investigation would be conducted. “He should not have unloaded the machines in the hotel, which is against rules,” Hindustan Times quoted Ghosh.
Sub-Divisional Officer Kundan Kumar seized the machines after receiving information, according to The Times of India.
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