Kozhikode: A man, who complained that his vote was registered for the party he did not choose, found himself on the wrong side of the law after police decided to file a case against him for submitting a wrong plaint about polling.
The Elathur police submitted a report to the Koyilandy Judicial Chief Magistrate seeking permission to take action against the 'complainant'. The voter claimed that when he cast his vote at booth 17 in Edakkad, near West Hill in Kozhikode Lok Sabha constituency, for his candidate of choice, the lotus symbol of the BJP was displayed on the voting machine. When he complained to the presiding officer, the official asked him to cast a test vote half an hour later.
But subsequent votes proved that there was no technical error or irregularity. So the polling official reported that to the police calling the complaint fake.
Police took him to the station and sent him with his family after verification. “Once we get permission to take legal action against him, we will register the case. This is a non-cognizable offence, hence we can't register a case without the permission of the court,” an officer of the Elathur police station told Onmanorama.
“The polling official cross-checked the alleged irregularity after half an hour. That's why the voting is displayed properly,” said Adv PM Niyas, the chief election agent to the UDF candidate MK Raghavan. “In booth 83, a female voter complained about the same issue. There too, the lotus symbol was displayed on the machine,” he said. The Elathur police also confirmed that the test voting was done after half an hour in that booth too.
In a statement, the district collector said the complaints about irregularities in the voting machines in two booths were baseless. "A test voting was done over the complaint from booth no. 17 and it was found that the complaint was baseless,” the collector said. “Action must be taken against the complainant for raising a wrong complaint;” the release added.