Amid the ongoing political uproar over TMC leaders’ protest outside the strong room and allegations of EVM tampering, the Election Commission on Thursday (April 30) clarified its stand. State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Manoj Kumar Agarwal issued a significant statement in response to the allegations made by TMC leaders.
Election Commission rejects allegations of tampering in CCTV
Manoj Kumar Aggarwal said that none of the CCTV cameras installed inside the strong room had been switched off. He said “live footage” of the strong room has been made available to all political parties, so that they can monitor the complex themselves. The Commission completely rejected the claims that the footage had been tampered with. Recently, TMC leaders had alleged that cameras installed outside the strong rooms were found switched off at some places, raising questions over the fairness of the elections. The state Chief Electoral Officer said that a total of eight strong rooms have been made; Of these, EVM machines are kept in seven, while postal ballots are 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. To ensure this, a stringent three-tier security system has been implemented.
EVM strong room is completely safe’ – Election Commission
The statement stressed that all the EVM strong rooms located at Khudiram Anushilan Center are completely secured, sealed and under strict surveillance. Officials clarified that only sorting of postal ballots was going on at that location—which was being done as per prescribed rules—and the process was mistakenly shown as opening of the EVM strong room. Referring to a video that went viral on social media, the returning officer of Beliaghata assembly constituency said: “The EVM strong rooms of a total of seven assembly constituencies are located inside the Khudiram Anushilan Kendra premises. After the end of polling, all these rooms were locked and sealed in the presence of the candidates, their election agents and the general observer.” After polling ended late on Wednesday night, the last EVMs were sealed and deposited in the strong room at around 5:15 am on Thursday. All strong rooms containing EVMs are securely locked and under constant security surveillance.
What did the returning officer say?
The Returning Officer said that a separate ‘strong room’ for postal ballots is also located in the same premises, where the postal ballots received from different assembly constituencies are kept. The process of sorting these postal ballots started at 4:00 pm on Thursday. He clarified that the sorting of postal ballots was being done in the corridor located outside the EVM strong room, while the main EVM strong room was completely closed and sealed. All observers, returning officers and political parties were informed about the process in advance.
The Returning Officer was directed to inform the candidates and agents of their respective areas about the matter. Accordingly, official notices were sent to all the candidates—including Kunal Ghosh (TMC), Parmita Roy (CPI(M)), Partha Choudhary (BJP), Shahina Javed (Congress) and Jayanti Mitra (SUCI(C))—and their election agents. Election officials reiterated that the sorting of postal ballots began at 4:00 pm—which was done strictly following the prescribed protocol and after duly informing all political parties—and stressed that the EVM strong rooms were not opened at any stage of the process.
