Elections 2019: Polling booth moved, names missing, faulty EVMs

The glamourless north east Parliamentary constituency saw a lot of drama on voting day since morning Comprising six assembly constituencies it saw 5535 per cent voter turnout In 2014 the constituency had registered a 5170 per cent turnout Of this Ghatkopar east topped the list with 6030 per cent followed by Mulund at 6010 per cent Vikhroli at 5903 per cent Bhandup west at 57 per cent Ghatkopar west at 5381 per cent and Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar at 4402 per centPolling centre goes missingThe day started with voters at Bhandup east complaining of an entire polling centre gone missing and alleged that it had been shifted two km away without prior notice Citizens said they realised it only after reaching the spot and did not know what to doBhandup resident Chandra Sreenivasan alleged that it was a ploy to discourage voters I wanted to vote I fought with the election officer on duty and said that such tricks would not put off voters if they intended to do that We have been voting at the same BMC garden every time and this time when we got the election slip it had the same address but when we reached the spot there was nothing there A few locals then told us that it had been shifted near the old Bhandup phatak which is about 2 km away from the location she told middayThe old and ill will not travel 2 km to an unknown spot but I did not give up I took an auto and went all the way there and fired the election staff on duty When I questioned them they said that they had just received a message in the morning to report here she added Election officials however said that it was decided to shift the polling centre from the garden to a building and a notice had been put up in the garden though Sreenivasan said there were no noticesCandidate posters put upThe BJPs secretary Vivekanand Gupta said they had reported a complaint against the NCP candidate after they found a banner with his photograph within 100 metres of the polling booth in Bhandup He requested the EC to direct police officials to remove it immediatelyFaulty EVMsSeveral complaints of faulty Electronic Voting Machines EVMs came to the fore during voting throughout the day delaying the processes from 45 minutes to one hour At some centres there were issues with the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail VVPAT slip as it was not visible after voting and in some cases there was an error displayed At booth 93 at Sharon English School in Mulund the voting had to stopped after the EVM developed a snag and an engineer had to be summoned to fix it Voting restarted after 45 minutesAlso ReadElections 2019 in Mumbai Voters poll officials confused over ban on mobile phonesCandidates switch disabledAn independent candidate Anil Hebbar said his name was disabled on EVMs and after his complaint the machines were replaced At booth 155272 in Mulund button no 14 next to my name was disabled The officer incharge discovered it before polling started and changed the ballot unit leading to a delay of 1 hr and 15 min he saidVoted but not inkedA voter Reena Verghese alleged that she cast her vote in booth 243 at St Pius School in Mulund west but her finger was not inked She went again inside the booth to get the mark on her finger when she realised thisSr citizens name missingKalawati Tambe 86 missed out on voting as her name was missing from the electoral list A resident of Kannamwar Nagar building 14 all her neighbours names were on the list but hers did not figure She said she came to vote though she was in her hometown for past few days She complained that she had to climb onto the first floor her legs were paining and she was very unhappy that she could not voteJugaad chairsAt many places the election commission had put up jugaad chairs tied to sticks like a palkhi to carry senior citizens to upper floors in buildings where there were no lifts They showed videos of all those fancy automatic chairs but they assembled such jugaad plastic chairs Harkishan Rai a senior citizen said The rule of not allowing mobile phones was also leniently followed with cops telling voters that they could carry phones but requested them to switch them off5535pcThe voter turnout in North EastAlso ReadElections 2019 in Mumbai Physically challenged elderly get little help at polling stationsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates