Betul, Madhya Pradesh:

The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday ordered repolling at four booths in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul Lok Sabha seat on May 10 after electronic voting machines were damaged when a bus ferrying them and polling personnel post-voting caught fire, an official said.

The bus was ferrying election staffers and electronic voting machines after polling in the Betul Lok Sabha seat during the day when it caught fire on Tuesday at around 11 pm near Gola village, causing damage to a few EVMs, he said.

However, no one was injured in the incident, Betul Collector Narendra Suryavanshi told PTI earlier.

After the district administration submitted a report on the fire incident, the EC on Wednesday ordered re-election at four polling stations of the constituency. The repolling is scheduled from 7 am to 6 pm on May 10 (Friday) on these booths located under the Multai assembly segment of the parliamentary seat, the official said.

These booths were set up at Government Integrated High School, Rajapur, Government Integrated High School, Raiyat, Government Primary School Kunda, Raiyat and Government Integrated High School, Chikhlimal, he said.

The fire broke out because of a spark in the bus, the collector said.

Six polling parties and half a dozen EVMs were in the bus at the time of the incident and four of the voting machines were damaged, Suryavanshi said.

In the four affected EVMs, either a control unit or a ballot unit suffered damage, he said.

An estimated 72.65 per cent polling was recorded in the Betul Lok Sabha seat on Tuesday, a poll official said.

Betul was among nine seats in Madhya Pradesh where voting took place in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections. 

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