Bhubaneswar, Aug. 10 -- Former Rajya Sabha MP Amar Patnaik on Sunday said the Biju Janata Dal was the first party in Odisha to raise the issue of "discrepancies between votes polled and votes counted" in the state to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

He noted that the BJD also raised the "possible errors" in the Electronic Voting Machine during the electoral process.

"BJD is the first party in the state to raise the issue of discrepancies between votes polled and votes counted, as well as the alarming increase in votes polled after 5 pm... BJD had taken it to the ECI. We had raised serious misgivings not only about possible errors in the machine but also in the process itself, which could be manual," Amar Patnaik told ANI.

He fur...