Chennai, April 13(BPNS)

With the elections over on April 6 and the long wait to counting on May 2 ,the main political parties of Tamil Nadu are leaving no stone unturned and are watching the strong rooms which house Electronic Voting Machines at counting centres. Each political party has appointed agents in turn to watch the CCTV which shows the door of the strong room where the EVM’s are kept.

The agents are working on an eight hour shift and are allocated a room in each counting centre. While the DMK has been proactive in appointing agents to monitor the counting centres, all political parties of Tamil Nadu including the ruling AIADMK have appointed agents to watch the CCTV screens.

Kokilavarnan , an agent of DMK who is in charge of a counting centre at Chennai while speaking to BPNS said, “We have agents who are registered with the Election Commission and employ them in three shifts starting from 6 am in the morning till 2 pm and then from 2 pm upto 10 pm and from 10 pm to morning 6 am. We provide them food ,snacks, tea for the job. These are hard core party workers who are deputed as agents.”

The Indian Union Muslim League and the Congress party has also deployed agents to monitor counting centres.

Abdul Latheef, a leader of the IUML at Vaniyambadi, the party’s strong hold while speaking to BPNS said ,” We have a lot of our workers who are ready to be vigilant 24 hours and take risks. So our agents are there in the counting centres watching the CCTV footage of the strong room just to be sure that no manipulation is taking place.”

TN Congress state president and senior leader KS Alagiri also confirmed that the party has posted agents to monitor the counting stations.

With election results coming out only on May 2, the political parties consider this keen monitoring as part of the election process and not to risk any chance for tampering of the EVM’s if any.