In a shocking incident, an angry mob disrupted the polling process in the Kultali area of West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district on Saturday morning. The mob entered a polling station and threw an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine into a nearby pond.
The chaos unfolded at booth numbers 40 and 41 in Kultali during the 7th and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024. Reports indicate that the trouble began when a few polling agents were denied permission to stay inside the polling booth. This led to the angry mob storming the station, snatching the EVM and VVPAT machines, and throwing them into the pond.
“Today morning at 6.40 am, Reserve EVMs and papers of Sector Officer near Benimadhavpur FP School, at 129-Kultali AC of 19-Jaynagar (SC) PC, were looted by a local mob. One Control Unit (CU), one Ballot Unit (BU), and two VVPAT machines were thrown into a pond,” read a statement from the Chief Electoral Office, West Bengal on social media platform X.
An FIR has been registered regarding the incident, and a fresh EVM has been provided to the Sector Officer to ensure that the polling process continues. The authorities are working to ensure that the elections proceed smoothly despite this disruption.
