Repolling Begins at Five Jaipur Booths After EVM Glitches in Rajasthan Civic Elections

After a hiccup with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) during the count, the Rajasthan State Election Commission has rolled out fresh polling at five locations in Jaipur. The booths – No. 111 (Ward 9), No. 235 (Ward 18), No. 343 (Ward 25) and Nos. 477 and 484 (Ward 34) – are now seeing voters line up again, this time with brand‑new ballot papers and a fresh dab of indelible ink on the left middle finger.

The re‑polling started this Wednesday and is scheduled to run until 6 pm. Once the clock strikes, officials will reconvene on Thursday morning (Sept 17) at 8 am to tally the votes from these five booths. The move comes after the commission’s officials flagged that the number of votes that failed to display on the faulty EVMs exceeded the margin separating the closest contenders.

Jaipur isn’t the only city hit by the glitch. Similar repolling orders have been issued for a handful of booths in Jodhpur, Kota and Suket, all after district officers submitted detailed reports of the technical failures.

Voters like Rajesh Sharma, Anil Nagori and Santosh Paliwal, who queued at booth 477 in Ward 34, described the experience as “a bit of a hassle but reassuring that the commission is fixing it.” They were reminded that the earlier ink marks would be ignored, and a fresh stamp would be applied to ensure the integrity of the new vote.

These repolling exercises come on the heels of a sweeping victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Rajasthan urban local body elections. Out of the 150 wards in Jaipur Municipal Corporation, results for 146 have already been declared: the BJP has secured 78 seats, the Congress 53, and independents 15. The remaining four wards will only be finalized after the re‑polls are completed.

In a tight statewide contest, the BJP edged out the Congress by a razor‑thin margin of just 0.94 percent, gathering 3,735,567 votes against the Congress’s 3,635,952 – a difference of 99,615 votes across 309 civic bodies.

Jaipur District Collector Sandesh Nayak confirmed that the EVM readouts were missing for the five booths mentioned earlier, prompting the repolling directive. He added that the commission is closely monitoring the process to avoid any further discrepancies.

While the BJP celebrates its overall dominance, the close vote share underscores how every single ballot, even those from a handful of booths, can tilt the balance in tightly fought elections.