Violation of voting secrecy: CEC gives clean chit to Rahul

The Election Commission on Friday gave a clean chit to Rahul Gandhi on the allegation that he had violated secrecy of voting by entering the enclosure of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in one of the polling booths in Amethi on May 7.

“No case is made out,” Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath told PTI when asked about complaints that Gandhi had violated secrecy of voting by entering a voting compartment on the day of polling in his constituency.

He said the Commission had received reports from the District Magistrate, who is also the Returning Officer of the constituency, and from others that at the time when Gandhi entered the enclosure around 10.30 AM, the EVM was not working as it had developed some fault.

Sampath said they also checked with the photographer of a daily, who had clicked the picture, and polling agents of other candidates as well as micro observers and found that “no polling was going on at that time“.

“Gandhi had gone to see the machine which was not working. When he went there, there was no polling going on. No case is made out,” he said.

Asked about complaints that Gandhi had entered more than one EVM enclosure, the CEC said as a candidate he had gone to other polling booths. The complaint was about only one EVM compartment, he said.

There was a huge controversy, when on May 8 newspapers carried pictures of Gandhi examining an EVM and coming out of the polling booth sparking demands that EC should take action against him.