A week after elections were held in Andhra Pradesh, video footage of an MLA of the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) damaging an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in a poll booth has surfaced on social media.
YSRCP leader Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy, the sitting MLA from the Macherla constituency, was seen walking into the Palwai Gate polling centre, where an election official got up to greet him. Without saying a word, the MLA walked into the enclosed area where the EVM was kept, picked it, and threw it on the ground. The incident was recorded on the web camera at the polling booth.
The incident took place on May 13 when all 25 of Andhra Pradesh’s Lok Sabha constituencies and all 175 Assembly seats went to the polls.
The Election Commission (EC) said EVMS were damaged in seven polling stations on May 13 in the Macherla Assembly constituency, including the one where Reddy, allegedly damaged an EVM.
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In a statement, the EC said Reddy was recorded on camera vandalising EVMs in seven polling centres, “along with PS number 202”, in the Macherla Assembly constituency.
“Palnadu district election officials have handed over video footage of all such polling stations to the police to assist in the investigation of the case related to the vandalism incident. The EC is taking this matter very seriously and has directed Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Kumar Meena to inform the director general of police to take strict action against all those PTI.
The poll panel ordered Chief Electoral Officer MK Meena to ask the DGP to take strong action in the matter. The police have informed the CEO that the MLA has been named as accused in the case.
The EC also directed the police to take stringent action against all the persons involved in the EVM damaging cases to make an example out of them so that “nobody in the future dares to take any such action to interfere into the peaceful conduct of polls”.
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