India’s youngest state Telangana is voting in its first Assembly election on Friday. With an electorate of over 2.8 crore, there are 1,821 candidates vying for 119 Assembly seats. However, some voters ran into a few hurdles. At several places in Telangana, there were reports of faulty EVMs, which irked several people, including working professionals who had come early to cast their vote before heading to work.
One such woman was Amaravati, who came in at 7.30 am to AV college in Hyderabad to cast her vote. She had hoped to get done early and leave, but had to wait at the booth till 10.30 am due to technical glitches in the EVM machine. “People are upset and angry because the machines stopped working. But we must exercise our vote. It shouldn't go to waste,” she told TNM.
Amaravati
Suresh Kumar, a mechanic, was one of the first people to stand in line to cast his vote. Having arrived at AV college at 7 am, he only got done around 11 am. “The EVM was not functioning, and even the machine they got to replace it was faulty,” he said, “Yes, my time did get wasted, but it’s okay.”
Suresh Kumar
In the Malkajgiri constituency too, voters were delayed due to faulty EVM. A voter who had come to the MPCP School, Yapral, said, “I came here at 7 am to avoid all the crowd and mayhem, but it took the authorities more than one hour to fix the EVM. We were forced to wait in the queue, couldn't they check if the machines were fine before 7, so that they the polling would start at the right time?”
According to reports, voting was delayed by two hours at a polling booth in Banjara Hills Road too. The faulty EVM was replaced only by 9 am and only then could the people who had been waiting cast their vote.
Polling was delayed by an hour at the Lal Bahadur school in Nimboliadda in Amberpet constituency due to the same issues.
.#polling station at Lal Bahadur school in Nimboliadda, Amberpet Constituency, has a lot of people standing due to faulty EVM and VVPAT machines.
— Ajay Moses (@ajaymoses_tnie) December 7, 2018
Polling started an hour late.@NewIndianXpress #TelanganaElections2018 pic.twitter.com/EOnFVD9YcZ
2 hours and EVM's are not even enabled in many areas of Telangana
— పోతారు సార్ (@TDPSoldier) December 7, 2018
Officers are not even responding to this situation
Senior citizens have been in line since 2 Hrs and are now returning back
ECI failed India
Save democracy @rashtrapatibhvn
@chief election commission.Telangana., EVM are not working in 047-Division .,Booth 333and 333 A .
— satya yadavalli (@satyavijayalaxm) December 7, 2018
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Though we have better technology and planning, still we see the defective EVM at many polling station of Telangana. #TelanganaElections2018
— Waseem Shaikh (@WaseemSk05) December 7, 2018