Nearly 1,000 components of EVM sets replaced in Assam: official

A total of 965 Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) components -- control units, VVPATs and ballot units -- were replaced due to malfunctioning in the third and last phase of polling across the four Lok Sabha seats in Assam on Tuesday, officials said.

In several cases, the components were replaced as the complete EVM set, while it was changed in parts in most of the cases after snags were detected, a senior official of the Election Department told PTI on condition of anonymity.

Several of these glitches were noticed during the mock polling, which started 90 minutes before the commencement of the actual voting, and those machines were replaced accordingly, he added.

An EVM has three components -- Control Unit (CU), Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and Ballot Unit (BU).

"In the four constituencies, 259 CUs, 447 VVPATs and 259 BUs were replaced in total from different machines," the official said.

Out of these, 147 CUs, 210 VVPATs and 147 BUs were replaced during the mock poll after they malfunctioned, the official said.

"During the actual poll, 112 CUs, 237 VVPATs and 112 BUs were changed. After replacing the machines, the polling continued smoothly," he added.

As per the data compiled from all the constituencies, the highest 280 units of the three components combined together were replaced in Dhubri, followed by 265 units in Barpeta, 226 units in Guwahati and 194 units in Kokrajhar.

There are a total of 9,516 polling stations, including 300 critical ones, in the third phase. Out of the total booths, 326 are managed by women and 14 by persons with disabilities (PwD). There are also 84 model polling stations.

A total of 81,49,091 electors, including 41,00,544 men, 40,48,436 women and 111 third gender are eligible to vote in the third phase of polling in Assam.

There are 1,529 centenarians, 40,705 voters above 85 years and 2,10,177 people are first time voters.

A total of 47 candidates, including six women, are in the fray in the four constituencies -- Guwahati, Barpeta, Dhubri and Kokrajhar (ST).