The Election Commission on Tuesday suspended a sector officer in West Bengal’s Uluberia Uttar constituency after it was found that he slept at the home of a local Trinamool Congress leader with Electronic Voting Machines, ANI reported. Two assistant sector officers have also been suspended for violating the Election Commission’s guidelines, the news agency reported, citing the Howrah district election officer.
Uluberia Uttar is one of the 31 constituencies in the state which went to polls on Tuesday.
Tapan Sarkar, the deputed officer for Howrah’s Sector 17, took reserve voting machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails, or VVPATs, to the home of the TMC leader, who is a relative of the official, the Election Commission said in a statement.
“This is a gross violation of EC’s instructions for which he has been suspended and charges will be framed for major punishment,” the poll body said. The EVMs have been stored in the custody of the EC’s general observer after he checked its seals, ANI reported.
A first information report has been filed in case and several police officers have also been suspended, India Today reported.
Meanwhile, Sarkar said that he brought four EVMs to the home of TMC leader Goutam Ghosh in Uluberia’s Tulsiberia area since the office of the block development officer was occupied by police personnel, the Hindustan Times reported. The accused official said he wanted to rest and carried the machines with him as keeping them in the car would have been riskier.
Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in Uluberia Uttar, Chintan Bera, has dismissed Sarkar’s version of events and claimed that the TMC intended to “loot votes”, the Hindustan Times reported.
Locals gheraoed the home of the Trinamool leader and protested against the block development officer when he visited the site, according to ABP Ananda.
Thirty-one seats across three districts in West Bengal went to polls in the third round of elections on Tuesday. The state will have five more phases of voting, before results are declared on May 2.
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