Chennai : The counting staff at the election commission counting centre in Tamil Nadu have been directed to count VVPAT vote slips in 44 polling booths spread across 13 districts. The Commission directive comes after it came to light that the polling officers in the 44 booths failed to clear the mock poll data from the control units but had removed the VVPAT vote slips.

The election commission has written to the TN CEO since there was an error by polling officers, the vote count in these cannot be done in the 44 polling booths. The EC instruction has to be conveyed to all the returning officers about the decision.

The EC had also announced repoll in three of the polling booth and a repoll in 10 polling booth where cases of booth capturing were reported during April 18 polling.

In these three polling booth, there are some 11000 voters.

The three polling booths out of 46 polling booths, which are going for repoll are: Panchayat Union Elementary School at Thirumangalam in Kangeyam Assembly segment in Erode Parliamentary constituency, Kammavar Saraswathi Middle School at Balasumudram in Andipatti Assembly segment and Sankaranarayana Middle School at Vadugapati in Periyakulam Assembly segment.