Dahod: In a strange example of ignorant behavior, the voters in small village of Dahod district stamped a real table instead of the symbol of table on ballot paper while casting vote in Panchayat election.

At Sahod village of Garbada taluka in majorly tribal populated Dahod district of Central Gujarat, a woman candidate had been allotted a symbol of table for election of Sarpanch.

A woman candidate had done effective canvasing and asked voters to stamp on her election symbol ‘table’ to make her victorious.

However instead of stamping the symbol of table on ballot papers, a significant number of voters applied stamps on an actual table over which the ballot box was placed. Such voters put blank ballot paper in ballot box after stamping the table. Due to this behavior in mass, a woman candidate who was contesting for the post of Sarpanch with her election symbol as table lost the election.

Out of total 2,655 eligible voters, as many as 2,142 cast votes in Sahda village. As many as 165 stamps were found to be applied on the real table instead of the symbol of table on ballot paper in polling box table number three at polling station which was located in a school in this village.

A woman with her election symbol as table lost the election by 31 votes. While she had got 544 votes, her rival candidate got 575 votes. If voters had stamped table symbol on ballot papers instead of real table, the losing candidate could actually win the election.

Voting for gram panchayat election across Gujarat took place on December 19. DeshGujarat