A Tehsildar on election duty caused a flutter here when he took 30 Printer-cum-Auxiliary Display Unit (PADU) meant for printing results from the control units of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to his house on Wednesday night, instead of shifting them to the counting centre.
Prakasam Collector and District Election Officer G.S.R.K.R. Vijaykumar on Thursday issued suspension order to Mundlamur Tehsildar Sk.Jilani Basha after TDP polit bureau member and Darsi MLA candidate Sidda Raghava Rao lodged a complaint.
Suspecting that the Tehsildar had taken away all the EVMs along with the PADUs, a large number of TDP activists led by its Ongole unit President Y.Ch.Yogaiah Yadav staged a protest on Thursday morning seeking stern action against the official.
“We will take action against the Tehsildar after ascertaining whether his act was intentional or an inadvertent mistake,” the Collector said. “We have decided not to use the 30 BEL-made PADUs during the counting of votes in Darsi Assembly constituency,” Mr.Vijaykumar told the media, adding that the ECIL-made PADUs would be used instead. He also made a demonstration on the functioning of an EVM control unit attached with a PADU.
Darsi created a record 90.96 per cent polling, while Prakasam district registered 83.6 per cent polling in the simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly constituencies , he added.
