A bus carrying polling officials and Electronic Voting Machines in Betul district, Madhya Pradesh caught fire, resulting in damage to several EVMs, as confirmed by a senior official. However, no polling staff and the driver of the bus suffered any injury in the incident. Betul Collector Narendra Suryavanshi said that the incident took place near Gola village around 11 pm in the district on Tuesday, May 7.
Fire damaged EVMs
The fire took place because of a spark in the bus, but no one suffered any injuries in the incident. The fire damaged EVMs of four polling stations, including booth numbers 275, 276, 277, 278, 279 and 280, the collector stated.
At the time of the incident, six polling parties and an equal number of EVMs were there in the bus. Among these, four EVMs were damaged, while two remained safe. The fire caused either control unit or ballot unit damage in the affected EVMs, Suryavanshi said. When asked about the potential impact on the recorded vote count, the collector stated that he would forward his report to the Election Commission for consideration. The Election Commission will subsequently decide on the necessity for re-polling in the affected booths, he added.
Third phase of polling in Madhya Pradesh
A total of 72.65 per cent polling was recorded in the Betul Lok Sabha seat in the third phase of polling held on May 7. A provisional voter turnout of 66.05 per cent was recorded in the third phase of polling for nine Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, as per the Election Commission. A total of 127 candidates, including Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and two former chief ministers, Shivraj Singh Chouhan of BJP and Digvijaya Singh of Congress, were in the fray. The polling was held on these nine seats -- Morena, Bhind (SC-reserved), Gwalior, Guna, Sagar, Vidisha, Bhopal, Rajgarh and Betul (ST-reserved).
(With inputs from PTI)
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