Mumbai: A man live-streamed from inside the poll booth in Gujarat’s Dahod Lok Sabha constituency following which the Congress candidate promptly brought the episode to the Election Commission’s notice.
Vijay Bhabhor allegedly live streamed from the polling booth at Santrampur taluka in Mahisagar district, on his Instagram account but later deleted the video after it was widely circulated.
The opposition party claimed that Vijay was the son of incumbent MP and BJP candidate Jasvantsinh Bhabhor and demanded re-polling at the booth.
“We demand that there should be repolling on that booth and all those booths where the BJP is trying to do booth capturing. Not only that, the polling officer and the police deployed at that booth should also be investigated and action must be taken,” Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi told ThePrint.
The polling took place Tuesday in this reserved seat for Scheduled Tribes where Congress candidate Prabha Taviad is up against BJP’s Jasvantsinh Bhabhor. The BJP MP is eyeing a third consecutive term from Dahod.
In the widely shared video, Vijay is purportedly heard saying in Gujarati that “machine apnu baap nu che (machine belongs to my father)”. ThePrint was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the video.
“What kind of polling arrangement is this? This is a criminal act, and we want the Election Commission to investigate this strictly,” Doshi said. “No action has been taken yet.”
Later, Mahisagar Superintendent of Police Jaydeepsinh Jadeja told the media that two persons were detained in connection with the incident. “Action is being taken based on the FIR by the presiding officer under the Representative of the People Act for bogus voting,” the SP said.
“Bhabhor went to the poll booth to cast his vote at 5.49 pm and left by 5:54 pm. In those five minutes, he went live on Instagram and also allegedly cast votes on behalf of two other electors, amounting to bogus voting,” he added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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