By Admin 
Amidst the political turmoil over the protest by TMC leaders outside the strong room and allegations of EVM tampering, the Election Commission has clarified its position on Thursday (April 30). State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Aggarwal has given a big statement on the allegations made by TMC leaders.
Election Commission denies tampering with CCTV
Manoj Kumar Aggarwal said that none of the CCTV cameras of the strong room had been switched off. He said that the ‘live footage’ of the strong room was made available to all political parties, so that they could monitor themselves. The Commission has completely rejected the claims that the footage has been tampered with. Recently, TMC leaders had alleged that at some places the cameras installed outside the strong rooms were found switched off, due to which questions were being raised on the fairness of the elections.
The State Chief Electoral Officer said that a total of eight strong rooms were made, out of which EVM machines were kept in seven and postal ballots were kept in one. Live footage of all these rooms is being shown continuously. Representatives of political parties can monitor the machines through this footage while remaining outside the security circle. For this, strict three-tier security arrangements have been made.
‘EVM strong room is completely safe’ – Election Commission
The statement said that all the EVM strong rooms at Khudiram Anushilan Center are completely secure, sealed and under strict surveillance. Officials clarified that only the process of sorting of postal ballots was being done there as per the prescribed rules, which was wrongly presented as opening of EVM strong room.
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Regarding the viral video on social media, the Returning Officer of Beliaghata Assembly Constituency said, ‘There are EVM strong rooms of total 7 Assembly Constituencies in the Khudiram Anushilan Kendra premises and all of them were closed and sealed in the presence of the candidates, their election agents and the General Observer after the end of voting. The last EVM was sealed in the strong room at around 5:15 am on Thursday after the completion of voting late on Wednesday night. All the strong rooms containing EVMs are securely locked and their security is being constantly monitored.
What did the returning officer say?
The returning officer said that there is also a separate strong room for postal ballots in the same premises, where postal ballots of different assembly constituencies are kept. The process of sorting this postal ballot was started from 4 pm on Thursday. He told that sorting of postal ballots was being done in the corridor outside the EVM strong room, while the main EVM strong room remained completely closed and sealed. Information about this process was already given to all observers, returning officers and political parties.
Returning officers were instructed to inform this to the candidates and agents of their respective areas. On this, official notice was sent to all the candidates and their election agents including TMC’s Kunal Ghosh, CPI(M)’s Parmita Roy, BJP’s Parth Chaudhary, Congress’s Shahina Javed, SUCI (C)’s Jayanti Mitra. Election officials reiterated that the sorting of postal ballots was started as per the prescribed procedure after informing all the political parties at 4 pm and the EVM strong room was not opened at any stage.
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