By IANS,
Raipur : Bhupesh Baghel, a former minister and Congress candidate from Chhattisgarh’s Raipur seat, has alleged that inadequate security was being provided for the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) kept in a college here and has begun a sit-in protest right outside the strong room.
Baghel and a few of his supporters reached the Engineering College Campus in Shej Bahar area late Saturday and began their sit-in, demanding that paramilitary troopers be deployed instead of the state police personnel to guard the EVMs kept in the strong room.
“It’s an under-construction engineering college which has no boundary wall and people have free access to the area where the EVMs of the Raipur Lok Sabha seat are being kept after the April 16 poll,” Baghel told reporters Sunday.
“Only state police personnel are guarding the strong room and they are placed under the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. I have no faith in the state police and they must be replaced by paramilitary troopers,” the Congress candidate added.
Ramesh Bais, the BJP candidate for the Raipur seat who hopes to win for the sixth consecutive time, slammed Baghel’s move.
“It’s totally unnecessary to stage a sit-in just outside the strong room. If he has any problem, he can complain to the election observers or the state’s chief electoral officer,” Bais told reporters.