Congress leaders in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district on Saturday alleged that the paper seals on a box containing postal ballots were found to be broken, a claim the returning officer denied.

Counting of votes for the assembly elections held on November 17 will be held on Sunday.

Mahesh Parmar, sitting Congress MLA from Tarana assembly constituency in the district, alleged that when he along with some party workers visited the strongroom where the boxes have been kept, they found that old seals on one of the boxes had been broken and new seals, still wet, had been affixed.

But collector Kumar Purushottam, who is also the returning officer for the district, said as per the Election Commission of India's (ECI) directives, the boxes of postal ballots were shifted from the district treasury to the counting centre at the Government Engineering College in the presence of representatives of all political parties and candidates during the day. The process was videographed, he added.

The Congress candidate from the Mahidpur seat objected that there was no paper seal on the lock of the box containing ETPBS (electronically transmitted postal ballot system) votes of Service voters, the collector said.

On inspection, it was found that there were two seals on the lid but not on the lock, Purushottam said.

“There was no question of anyone opening the box as there were paper seals. The video shows that no seal was broken," he said, adding that a seal was put on the lock in the candidate's presence.

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