A video of the booth ransacked in the Parli assembly constituency.
Credit:
Beed: A polling booth was vandalised and a worker of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) was assaulted on Wednesday in Parli assembly constituency, from where minister Dhananjay Munde of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP is seeking re-election, an official said.
Madhav Jadhav, a local leader of the Sharad Pawar-led party was assaulted in Bank Colony area of Parli town and the video of the assault went viral on social media, after which a polling booth at Ghatnandur in the constituency was vandalised, an official said.
Jadhav hails from Ghatnandur.
Some people entered the polling booth at Ghatnandur, threw the EVM on the ground and damaged the furniture in the booth, the official said.
Beed Collector Avinash Pathak said that after some persons tried to damage EVMs at Ghatnandur, the administration replaced the EVMs and voting resumed.
The data of votes cast through the earlier EVMs is safe in their control units and will be included during counting, he said.
“We are taking strict action against those who tried to damage the EVMs,” he said.
The NCP (SP) candidate from Parli assembly constituency, Rajesaheb Deshmukh claimed that a CCTV camera was disabled at a polling booth in Dharmapuri in the constituency.
In a viral video, a visibly annoyed Deshmukh can be seen talking to the polling staff about the "detached" cable of a CCTV camera and demanding to know who had done it.
Deshmukh later told reporters that the CCTV had been made dysfunctional.
“People from minority communities are not being allowed to come to the booth to vote. Someone else is pressing the button (on EVM). If this is the case, why do we even need an election? It seems the administration is merely completing a formality,” he claimed.
Polling in all 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm.
Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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