27 April,2014 07:29 AM IST | | Varun Singh
Returning officers forget to delete mock votes from EVMs in Malad, Chandivli and Kandivli
Errors in three polling stations by the poll officers has forced the Election Commission (EC) to hold a re-poll in three areas in the city. The officers had forgotten to delete the mock votes that are put in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) to check whether the machines are functioning correctly. The areas where the EC has decided to re-hold election today are Chandivli, Kandivli and Malad.
Voting will take place again in three areas of the city
While Kandivli and Malad are in Mumbai-North constituency, Chandivli falls in North-Central Constituency of Mumbai. The current voting percentage in Mumbai-North is 51.67 per cent and in North-Central, it is 51.1 per cent.
The candidates contesting from these areas are Gopal Shetty from Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), Sanjay Nirupam from Congress and Satish Jain from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Mumbai-North. In North-Central constituency, the fight is between BJP's Poonam Mahajan, Priya Dutt from Congress, Farhan Azmi from Samajwadi Party and Phiroze Palkhiwala from AAP.
The current voting percentage in Chandivli is 42.7 per cent, the second lowest in Mumbai after Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar where the polling percentage was a mere 40.8 per cent. The total voters in this constituency are 17.38 lakh and the total votes polled in this constituency were 8.58 lakh. The voting percentages of Kandivli and Malad are 53.99 per cent and 51.42 per cent respectively. Totals voters in this constituency were 17.83 lakh and 9.21 lakh voted.
Madhukar Ardaad, the returning officer from North Central constituency, said, "The electoral officers at the polling booth forgot to delete the mock votes cast in the machine, thus leading to a re-poll in these constituencies in Mumbai." Earlier the voting percentage was 52.66 but now the EC has clarified that 51.88 is the actual percentage of the votes polled in Mumbai.
