District officials, led by District Collector Yasmeen Bash, broke open the strongroom in which electronic voting machines (EVMs) of the Dharmapuri constituency were stored. The strongroom is located at the VRK Engineering College at Nukapalli.
The officials broke the open the strongroom following the High Court’s instructions to the district administration to submit a report to the court relating to the counting of the votes of the Dharmapuri Assembly constituency. The report is to be submitted to the court on April 26. The entire operation of breaking open and collecting information from trunk boxes was video recorded.
It may be recalled that Dharmapuri Congress candidate Adluri Laxman Kumar approached the High Court saying that irregularities had taken place in the counting of votes. The court directed the district officials to submit 17A and 17C documents and CCTV footage of counting. To the shock of the district officials, the keys to two of three strongrooms were missing.
The officials reported the facts to the High Court which ordered the district administration to break open the strongrooms. Apart from it, the Election Commission of India on the orders of the High Court constituted a three-member team comprising officials to probe into the key missing episode. The team visited Jagtial and a report is yet to be submitted to the High Court.
The officials reportedly broke open some trunk boxes as their keys of them could not be found. The keys to some boxes were found.
