The State committee of the Kerala Higher Secondary Teachers Union (KHSTU) on April 29 (Monday) expressed strong protest over the attempts to hold presiding officers and other field-level officers responsible for the alleged delay in completing the Lok Sabha elections voting proceedings. The union leaders claimed that it was the negligence on the part of the top election authorities that played spoilsport.

In a statement issued in Kozhikode, the union functionaries pointed out that the presiding officers were compelled to follow the pre-fixed time schedule on the electronic voting machines as they had no other manual options. Even booths which had about 1,500 voters were not bifurcated into two for improving the speed of voting, they claimed.