Keys Missing, Strong Rooms Force Opened In Davangere
bengaluru : The counting of votes for the Davangere South Assembly by-poll was delayed by about half an hour on Monday after election officials failed to find the keys to three open safes housing electronic voting machines. The EVMs were stored at DRR College in Davangere city.
Voting for Davangere South Seat by-election was held on April 9, where Congress candidate Samarth Mallikarjun and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Srinivas Daskariyappa engaged in a straight fight.
Everything is ready for vote counting in the hall, polling officials will start counting votes from the scheduled time of 7.30, but there was no sign of the key to the 3 powerful chambers. With time running out and no other options left, the authorities began opening the doors of the safe room using a chisel and hammer, with prior permission from the relevant authorities.
The counting of votes was to begin around 7.30 am but started around 8 am after the doors of the strong room were forced open in the presence of Deputy Commissioner Gangadhar Swamy, Election Observer Ramankanth and Returning Officer Santosh Kumar.
Video clips circulating on social media showed staff working with chisels and hammers to open the rope room door as police and election officials waited for the doors to open for vote counting. Finally, after knocking on the sides to loosen the lock, the safe room doors opened.
Officials managed to enter the safe room to collect EVMs for counting to begin. When the doors were forced open, the polling officers saw that the seals on the locks were intact, the moments of anxiety disappeared and the vote counting began.
The Davangere by-poll was held due to the demise of Congress MLA Shamanur Shivashankaraappa in December the previous year. He died at the age of 95 and the Congress party fielded his grandson Samarth Mallikarjun in the by-poll.
But the missing keys to the safe rooms have led to people asking the Election Commission of India (ECI) “Why can’t it even secure the safe keys?” It made him question: Another: “How can people trust the system?” he asked.
