Bypolls: Voting Machines Can't Take The Heat?

It was the day that the opposition had been waiting for to figure out if what happened in Gorakhpur and Phulpur was a one-off, or it was the start of the BJP's downward trend. The bypolls in the Kairana Lok Sabha seat and Noorpur assembly seat were again fought with a BJP versus the rest model, with the Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate fighting the seat to consolidate Dalit, Muslim and Jat votes. But the heat wave played a spoilsport, according to the Election Commission. Large-scale EVM malfunctions were reported, and the EC blamed it on the heat wave interfering with the machines. The RLD gave a list of 175 EVMs that had malfunctioned. By the end of the voting, the EC itself doubled the figure to 384, calling it an unprecedented replacement. On Reality Check, we discuss the big bypoll battle and the faulty EVMs.