By IANS,
Hoshiarpur (Punjab : Counting for the Hoshiarpur Lok Sabha seat went through several tense hours Saturday afternoon when an electronic voting machine (EVM) developed a snag at a time when one candidate was leading over another by just 289 votes.
Engineers and election officials continued to grapple with the EVM for several hours.
The problem for the poll officials was that the EVM had over 550 votes in it and the margin between the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate was just 289 votes.
Congress’ Santosh Chaudhary was leading over BJP’s Som Prakash by a slender lead of 289 votes on this reserved seat when the snag occured.
Punjab’s chief electoral officer (CEO) Kusumjit Sidhu said that engineers were trying to fix the problem so that the result on this seat could be declared.
The counting on this seat saw fortunes of both candidates swing several times.
While Chaudhary has been a MP earlier, Som Prakash quit his job as a civil servant to contest the election.