Tracking the journey of EVMs

Charanjeet Kumar,an assistant engineer with the CPWD,left his Uttam Nagar residence at 2 am on Wednesday morning.

Charanjeet Kumar,an assistant engineer with the CPWD,left his Uttam Nagar residence at 2 am on Wednesday morning. Assigned poll duty in a sector office,Kumar was entrusted with the responsibility of collecting the Electronic Voting Machines meant for the Batla House polling station from the distribution centre at Khichripur.

Like him,hundreds of sector officers hurried to various secure locations all over the Capital between midnight and 4 am to collect these machines.

Late last month,the Irish government had rejected EVMs and ruled in favour of the ballot paper citing security concerns over electronic voting.

There are elaborate security measures. The drill begins a few months before the elections when engineers certify the EVMs. The process is totally transparent, said P. Krishnamurthy,the Returning Officer of Chandni Chowk.

For the Delhi polls held on Thursday,12,132 control units,operated by the Presiding officer,and 19,578 balloting units were used. Each balloting unit can list out 16 candidates. Therefore in constituencies with more than 16 candidates,two units had to be used.

In New Delhi and Chandni Chowk,where the number of candidates exceeded 32,three units were used. By the time polling wound up in Batla House at 6.30 pm,Kumar had been on the job for 16 hours.

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