Beeps in empty booth - What The Telegraph heard

The booth at Talkua Sishu Siksha Kendra around 5.45pm on Monday, a little
before the beeps were heard. Picture by Amit Datta 

TT, April 11: The second leg of the first phase of the Assembly polls in Bengal saw the Opposition lodging over 1,878 complaints that accused the ruling party of vitiating the poll process and the central forces of not doing enough.

At 7pm, state chief electoral officer Sunil Kumar Gupta said 1,810 complaints had been "disposed of" and the remaining 68 were being addressed. Congress state vice-president Debabrata Basu said Gupta and his team had achieved the feat of disposing of "over two complaints every minute" in 13 hours.

Perhaps keeping in mind the furore over the variations in the turnout figures of April 4 and allegations of ghost voting, Gupta did not give the data beyond 5pm today. The official closing time was 6pm.

The following are excerpts from a despatch from Pronab Mondal, one of the reporters of The Telegraph who covered the polling:

Place: Neradeul in the Keshpur Assembly segment in West Midnapore

Booth number: 53

Booth: Talkua Sishu Siksha Kendra

Total voters: 666

Votes polled: 587

10.30am: Inside the booth, I could see only the Trinamul candidate's agent. I asked about the agents of other candidates. A polling official told me that no other agent had turned up.

I came out and saw some villagers standing in the queue to cast their votes. A man was supervising the queue and speaking to the voters. It turned out that he was a Trinamul leader but he could not explain what he was doing on the booth premises.

He told me that it was a trouble-free area and Opposition parties also got votes from the booth. "In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the CPM had got 88 votes from this booth (which has 666 votes)," he said, citing the figure as proof of free and fair polls.

5pm to 6pm: I came back an hour before the polling was supposed to end. There was no queue. I asked a jawan from a central force whether the agents of other parties had entered the booth.

He replied in the negative. Asked about the turnout, he responded: "Eighty eight per cent."

I decided to wait outside the booth as there have been complaints that agents of the ruling party try to cast a few extra votes after the poll hour.

I still could not see any voter going in or coming out.

At 5.45pm, I heard a sharp "beep" from inside the booth.

This is the sound that emerges from the electronic voting machine when somebody casts his or her vote by punching the button on the ballot panel.

I heard the sound three more times. But no voter entered the booth. Neither did I see anyone leave.

At 6pm, the presiding officer came out of the booth, ensured that nobody was waiting outside and declared that the poll process was over for the day. Accompanying the official, the Trinamul candidate's agent nodded in agreement.

I asked the presiding officer about the final polling percentage. He replied that 587 of the 666 votes had been cast. It works out to 88.13 per cent - more or less what the central force jawan had forecast.

A source in the Election Commission of India later confirmed that the beep - loud and sharp and which can be heard from 60 to 70 metres away - can emerge only when a button on the ballot panel is pressed.

Who was pressing the button on the ballot panel? Were they the infamous ghosts who are known to descend in droves after the voting hours in Bengal?