The vote counting for the Pune Lok Sabha constituency was marred by an EVM glitch on Thursday morning.
Counting at booth number 14 has been temporarily halted after Congress representatives took objection to the fact that the (Electronic Voting Machine) EVM there had allegedly not been sealed properly, officials said.
According to initial reports, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and minister Girish Bapat, who is the BJP-Shiv Sena candidate for the Pune seat, has taken a comfortable lead over Mohan Joshi, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate.
Mr. Bapat secured a little over 29,800 votes while Mr. Joshi managed to garner 14,124 votes after the first round of counting.
Mr. Bapat’s supporters, supremely confident of an easy win over his Congress rival, had already put up placards since Wednesday all over Pune city, congratulating the BJP leader of his victory in advance.
