Kannur, Apr 19: District Collector and Chief Returning Officer Arun K Vijayan, has suspended five polling officials, on the charges of failure to maintain the secrecy of the home voting process on a 92-year-old voter E Devi at the Kalliasseri Assembly constituency on Friday.

The District Collector suspended the Special Polling officer, Polling Assistant, Micro Observer, Special police officer, and a videographer, in this regard.

On April 18, former CPI(M) Kallyassery branch Secretary and Booth agent Ganeshan allegedly tried to vote for E Devi (92) of Parakkadavu through external interference during the voting process and the CCTV footage of the incident went viral on social media.

Following the complaint, the District Collector also reported taking both departmental action and police cases against those involved, citing their breach of section 171(C) of the IPC and the violation of section 128 (1) of Representation of the People Act 1951.

The incident occurred under Booth number 164 in Kallyassery, which came under the Kasaragod Parliamentary constituency. The Kalliasseri Assistant Returning Officer has officially reported to the Kannapuram police Station through the City Police Commissioner to take criminal action against the persons.

A new polling team has been placed at Kallyassery, following this incident. The Congress party has filed a complaint to the Election Commission demanding stern action against those people who tried to sabotage the election process and sporadic incidents of bogus votes polled in the name of old aged voters with the support of few polling officials in the district.

UNI