Vijayawada: AP chief electoral officer G.K. Dwivedi ruled out suspicions about the protection of EVMs in the strong rooms and stated that agents can stay in the control rooms of strong room to clear their doubts.
Responding to the allegations about controlling EVMs through WiFi, he ruled out them as baseless and said that controlling the EVMs remotely is impossible. He warned about registering criminal cases if anybody spreads false news and rumours about the safety of EVMs and strong rooms.
Mr Dwivedi said that three-tier protection was given to strong rooms with continuous surveillance of CCTV cameras under the supervision of district collectors and SPs. He said that the returning officers checks strong rooms every day and were submitting the reports to EC. He said that further details about the visitors registered at the strong rooms and the officials are recording videos of the visits without fail. He stated that the EVMs which were not used also preserved and said that phone numbers of state and district election officers and returning officers were put on the display at strong rooms to lodge complaints.
Mr Dwivedi said that EC would conduct state-level training programme to the election officials and staff in the first week of May. He said that the training would be offered in three phases and media centres would be started in every counting centre. He said that mobile phones are not allowed in the counting centres hence mobile phone deposit centres would be started in all counting centres.
