Voting for local body elections in Maharashtra was marred by technical failures on Tuesday as Electronic Voting Machines malfunctioned at several polling centres across the state. The glitches led to delays of up to an hour in some locations, causing inconvenience to voters and prompting complaints from political candidates.
Widespread Technical Snags Across Districts
In Solapur district, EVM faults were reported at numerous polling booths. Voters in areas like Mohol, Kurduwadi, Akluj, Sangola, and Barshi Nagar Parishad encountered issues where buttons either failed to press or got stuck. At three specific booths in Sangola – Vidya Mandir Prashala, ZP Shala Dhangar Galli, and ZP Shala Bhopale Road – complaints about press errors on the ballot unit were serious enough to require engineers from the manufacturing company to inspect the machines via video conference. Ultimately, the control units and ballot units at these locations had to be replaced.
NCP (SP) Madha MP Dhairyasheel Mohite Patil confirmed the disruption in Akluj, stating, "The EVM malfunctioned at one of the booths. The voting was stopped for an hour." Election authorities assured that voting time would be extended by an hour to compensate for the delay.
Allegations of Tampering and Further Glitches
Beyond technical failures, allegations of potential foul play emerged. In Pandharpur, MVA-backed candidate for Pandharpur Nagar Parishad president, Pranita Bhalke, claimed that dot marks had been placed on the ballot unit of an EVM in one booth. She alleged this was done to "influence" voters to favour BJP candidates and said polling continued despite her demand to halt the process.
Similar technical problems were reported from other regions. In Beed city, polling at the Yashwantrao Natya Griha booth was halted for approximately 45 minutes after an EVM stopped working shortly after voting began at 7:30 AM. In Hingoli's Ganeshwadi Zilla Parishad Primary School (Ward 2), polling was suspended when EVM buttons became unresponsive, resuming only after a replacement unit arrived.
In Sillod, a loose wire in an EVM control unit slowed down voting until technicians fixed the issue on-site. In Jalna district's Partur taluka, BJP state secretary Rahul Lonikar raised an issue, alleging that button number 3 at a booth in Indira Nagar's Ward 1 was not functioning, thereby preventing votes for the corresponding candidate. Election officials examined and resolved this specific complaint.
Incidents Beyond EVM Issues
The election day also saw other contentious incidents. In the Nashik division, police prepared to file an FIR in Sinnar's Zaapwadi village after a man allegedly sprayed a chemical on several people following an argument around 5:30 PM.
In Muktainagar, Jalgaon district, MP Raksha Khadse accused Shiv Sena MLA Chandrakant Patil of manhandling her candidate and relatives inside a polling booth. Patil countered the allegation, stating, "We were just preventing people from outside the ward from entering the booths. Only valid voters were allowed in by our teams." Similarly, in Shahada of Nandurbar district, BJP and Janata Vikas Aghadi lodged cross-complaints against each other for allegedly influencing voters.
Despite the scattered issues, election officials maintained that the problems were localised and that polling across the vast majority of booths in the state continued smoothly and without interruption.
