Bengal polls: TMC alleges unauthorised sorting of postal ballot covers in complaint to EC

The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal on Saturday said that it has filed a complaint with the Election Commission alleging the unauthorised sorting of postal ballot covers at a strongroom housing Electronic Voting Machines in Kolkata, PTI reported.

This comes ahead of the counting of votes for the Assembly elections on Monday.

Polling was held in the state in two phases on April 23 and April 29. Repolling was being held on Saturday at 15 polling stations in the South 24 Parganas district that voted in the second phase of the elections.

Workers from the TMC camping outside the strongroom at Khudiram Anushilan Kendra alleged that eight trunks containing postal ballots were brought in at 4 am and were taken to a room that had no security camera coverage.

The EVMs from several Assembly segments in northern and eastern Kolkata are stored at Khudiram Anushilan Kendra.

An unidentified TMC member told the news agency that the party had been demanding that every “single millimetre of space where EVMs and postal ballots be under CCTV surveillance”.

When these trunks were taken inside, it was “clear that they were taken to a room not under CCTV cover”, the member said and asked why this should have happened.

Tensions escalated at the site after Purnima Chakraborty, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s...

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