Oppn seeks repoll alleging EVM malfunctioning in Kairana, Nurpur

Leaders of the Congress, SP and the RLD today demanded that the Election Commission should order re-polling in the Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly constituencies after there were reports of malfunctioning of the EVMs in some areas.

Polling for the high-stakes by-elections to the two constituencies was held today.

A delegation of the opposition party leaders met the EC and raised the issue of polling being halted at a number of places due to faulty EVMs.

The delegation, comprising Congress leader RPN Singh, SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav and RLD chief Ajit Singh, told the commission about the reports of malfunctioning of the electronic voting machines at many places.

"We have demanded that wherever the machines have malfunctioned, where the machines have taken more than an hour-and-a-half to be changed, re-polling should take place at those booths tomorrow or the day after.

"We have also demanded that wherever the machines were changed in less than an hour-and-a-half, an additional time of 90 minutes after 6 0'clock should be given to the people to cast their votes," Singh told reporters after the meeting.

The opposition has raised concerns about the reported malfunctioning of the EVMs in some areas, due to which the polling process was held up for a few hours.