EC silent on CM’s EVM tampering charge

SHILLONG: The Election Commission of India is yet to react to Chief Minister Mukul Sangma’s allegation that tampering of EVMs has led to the defeat of his wife Dikkanchi Shira in Tura by-poll, the result of which was declared on Thursday.
National People’s Party (NPP) candidate Conrad Sangma won the by-election defeating Congress’ Dikkanchi with a huge margin of 1.92 lakh votes.
Conrad, youngest son of the former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Sangma  secured 3,29,497 votes while Dikkanchi polled 1,37,285 votes.
Soon after the declaration of the result, the Chief Minister said, “There is an impression and doubts coming from our voters about manipulation of EVMs, and hence I am asking our legal team to examine the matter to take up future course of action.”
However, sources from the State Election department has downplayed the allegations.
An official source said that it is only after several rounds of checking by independent agencies that the EVMs are commissioned for the election.
The source also added only three EVMs mal functioned, one in West Garo Hills and two in North Garo Hills.
“However, there is direction from Election Commission that whenever there is big margin, the votes polled in mal-functioned EVMs will not make any impact and hence it is not normally counted though the data is retrievable”, the source added.
The source also added that the commissioning of EVMs is carried out in the presence of election observers and representatives of political parties contesting the polls.