To complete the election process for the Dinanagar Municipal Council (Gurdaspur district)—which was halted due to a technical glitch—re-polling will now be conducted at Booth No. 9 of Ward No. 6. Following directives from the Punjab State Election Commission, the administration has finalized all preparations for the re-poll.
Voting will take place on June 15 from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and the votes will be counted and the result declared immediately after polling concludes. District Election Officer and Deputy Commissioner Aditya Uppal stated that a technical malfunction occurred in the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at Booth No. 9, Ward No. 6 of the Dinanagar Municipal Council during the voting held on June 13. This disrupted the election process, preventing the declaration of the final result. Issue arose before voting began.
According to reports, a technical problem occurred in the first machine shortly after voting commenced. Election officials took immediate action to provide a replacement machine, and the remaining voting was conducted using that unit. The administration endeavored to keep the voting process smooth at the time to ensure voters faced no inconvenience. However, the actual problem surfaced when the process of compiling the results—by aggregating votes recorded in both machines—began after polling ended. Officials reported that the display of the first machine was not functioning technically, making it impossible to retrieve the count of votes recorded on it. Consequently, an accurate tally of total votes could not be obtained, and the counting process had to be halted.
Report sent to the Election Commission
A detailed report regarding the matter was submitted to the State Election Commission. After reviewing the technical situation, the Commission decided to order a re-poll at the concerned booth to ensure a fair and transparent election.
The administration states that all necessary technical and security arrangements have been made for the re-poll to ensure the voting process concludes without any hindrance. Officials have appealed to voters to arrive at the polling station at the scheduled time and exercise their right to vote. All eyes—those of the candidates and voters of Ward No. 6—are now fixed on the re-poll scheduled for June 15. The final outcome of the electoral contest in this ward will be known only after the voting and vote-counting processes are concluded.
