'Missing' EVMs in MP: March damage, Aug warning — no stock check until Sep

• 24 EVM units — eight ballot units and 16 control units — are unaccounted for in Anuppur, Madhya Pradesh.

• A warehouse wall was damaged in March, while a contractor reportedly warned the SDM in August that EVMs were exposed during demolition work.

• The machines were shifted only on 21 September, with the discrepancy detected during verification.

Twenty-four electronic voting machine (EVM) units — eight ballot units and 16 control units — have gone missing from a warehouse in Madhya Pradesh's Anuppur district, with the discovery coming after months of warning signs about the security of the machines.

The machines were found missing during a physical verification conducted between 24 and 28 September, after EVMs stored at the old tehsil office were shifted to a new location on 21 September. The police have registered a case against unidentified persons, while an administrative inquiry is also under way.

What has raised questions is the timeline leading up to the discovery. According to the complaint, the EVM warehouse behind the old tehsil office was inspected on 16 March, when the machines were found properly arranged. The building was subsequently taken up for dismantling as it had become dilapidated. During the work, the rear wall of the room housing the EVMs was found damaged.

Despite the damaged wall, the machines were not immediately shifted and a comprehensive physical verification was not conducted at that stage, according to the complaint and local reports.

A further warning reportedly came on 20 August. Contractor Ashish Tripathi is said to have informed then SDM Prashi Agrawal that some EVMs were lying in an exposed area while demolition work was under way. The SDM reportedly visited the site about 90 minutes later. Yet, according to the reports, the machines remained there for around another month before being moved.

The EVMs were finally shifted on 21 September to a room on the ground floor of the tehsil office operating from the Polytechnic College premises. It was during the subsequent physical verification that officials discovered a mismatch between the stock records and the machines physically available. Eight ballot units and 16 control units were unaccounted for. Their serial numbers have been included in the complaint lodged with Kotwali police.

The machines had been stored at the old tehsil office since 2014 for local elections. According to the records cited in the complaint, the warehouse held 620 control units and 1,670 ballot units. The EVMs had therefore remained in storage for more than a decade before the discrepancy was detected.

That raises a broader question beyond the immediate disappearance: how frequently were the machines physically reconciled with the stock records between 2014 and 2026?

Local reports say the investigation will examine the stock registers, serial numbers, movement records and documents relating to the shifting of the machines. It will also have to establish when the 24 units went missing and whether they were physically removed from the warehouse or transferred elsewhere without the corresponding records being updated.

Anuppur police station in-charge Umesh Upadhyay said a complaint had been received regarding the missing machines and that an investigation had begun. The FIR has been registered under Sections 331(4) and 305(A) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

An administrative investigation led by the Anuppur SDM has also been reported, with the security arrangements at the old warehouse, the damaged wall and the EVM records being examined.

The discovery has also acquired a political dimension because Madhya Pradesh held polling for 103 posts in three-tier panchayat by-elections on 29 September, just days before the missing machines were reported. The elections covered 79 sarpanch, 15 janpad panchayat member, five zilla panchayat member and four panch posts.

There is, however, no evidence so far that the 24 missing units were used in those elections, tampered with or used to influence their outcome. Indeed, current reports do not establish whether the missing machines were even capable of being deployed in the 29 September polls.

The Congress has seized on the episode to question the security of election material and has demanded an investigation. Its allegations of a wider conspiracy have not been established.

For now, the most immediate questions are administrative: why were the EVMs not moved when the warehouse wall was found damaged in March? Why, after the reported August warning that machines were exposed, did they remain there for weeks? And when was the last full physical reconciliation of the machines carried out?