On Tuesday, Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan raised questions regarding the safety of strong rooms where the ballot boxes have been stored, while speaking to the media at the Secretariat in Chennai.
This comes a few days after DMK president MK Stalin wrote to the Election Commission (EC) regarding unauthorised persons and vehicles in the premises where the strong rooms were. Kamal Haasan too, made a similar complaint to the state Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo.
Kamal Haasan said, “There are several questions since the CCTV cameras are becoming faulty, vehicles are entering the premises where ballots are stored, there’s interruption in the Wi-Fi connection and people with laptops are walking near the strong room. This raises many doubts and questions.”
“However, the strong room should be protected and the rules should be followed. It's the duty of the Election Commission to create trust regarding the democratic duty. Already 30% of the people are skipping their democratic duty. So if such questions keep rising it is a threat to democracy,” he said.
He also added that they plan to make more complaints as other instances come to their attention.
DMK’s MK Stalin had earlier written a letter to the EC. He alleged that the guidelines to safeguard the polled EVMs (electronic voting machines) were not properly followed in many places. The DMK leader also said that many closed vehicles were seen entering the premises where the EVMs were stored and removed only after party members protested.
Stalin further said that he was told that the vehicles were the toilet facility for women police personnel, but questioned that since the EVMs were stored in educational institutions which already had toilet facilities. He also claimed there was increased Wi-Fi activity when the vehicles reached the strong room.