Madhya Pradesh: Bus carrying EVMs, polling officials catches fire in Betul, damage reported

Betul (Madhya Pradesh) [India], May 8 (ANI): A bus carrying polling officials and electronic voting machines (EVM) caught fire in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district while returning from Goula village on Tuesday night, causing damage to a few EVMs, according to a senior police official.

The incident took place near Goula village in Multai tehsil of Betul district and a case was registered into the matter, he added.

Sharing details, Betul SP Nischal Jharia said the fire broke out due to a mechanical fault but no one suffered any injuries in the incident. There were 36 people on the bus.

“The polling personnel left with EVMs of six polling booths…The fire broke out due to a mechanical fault. Two EVMs are undamaged while four others suffered a little damage to their parts. There were 36 people on the bus. They jumped out of the bus by somehow breaking the glass on the windows of the bus as its doors got jammed.

They did not suffer injuries…They were sent ahead on another bus…A case has been registered in this regard,” Betul SP Nischal Jharia told ANI.

Meanwhile, Betul Collector DM Narendra Kumar Suryavanshi said the report has been sent to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

“We have sent a report to the Election Commission. We will take the next steps after instructions come from there…All the polling personnel are safe. They deposited their polling material here…Prima facie, as per the eyewitnesses, it was a mechanical fault,” Betul Collector DM Narendra Kumar Suryavanshi said.

During the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, nine seats in Madhya Pradesh including Betul, Guna, Morena, Bhind, Rajgarh, Vidisha, Gwalior, and Bhopal, cast ballots in the state with an approximate voting turnout percentage of 66.05 per cent.

The prominent candidates who were in the fray from Madhya Pradesh were former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Digvijaya Singh, the BJP candidate from Vidisha, Union Minister and BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, the Congress candidate from Rajgarh, and former Bhopal mayor Alok Sharma, BJP’s candidate from Bhopal.