Riots over TV text voting problems

Link: The Telegraph – Calcutta : Frontpage

I like the way we do things in the UK. Queue neatly for things, no pushing and shoving. Grumble occasionally about the weather, but still put up with it. And if there’s a problem with voting for our favourite X Factor singer to win the show, the worst that can happen is a national newspaper picks up on it. However, in India, things got a little more serious over the weekend.

Mobs from Darjeeling to Kalimpong vandalised and gheraoed offices of mobile service providers today alleging their SMS votes for a local Indian Idol contestant were not being registered.

Hills people alleged their votes for Tamang were not being registered because of network problems, especially with Reliance and BSNL connections, and claimed ‘sabotage”.

‘After sending an SMS through Reliance we were getting a message saying the code word was not found. This means our votes were not getting through. We believe this is sabotage,” said Pranay Rai, Gorkha National Liberation Front MLA from Darjeeling.

Oops. The article goes on, in a bit more technical detail:

BSNL subscribers such as Bimal Sharma said they were not receiving the delivery status confirming their votes had reached. ‘For every 20 to 30 text messages, we were getting a delivery status report for one or two. Our money, however, was being deducted.”

V. Bhattacharya, SDO (telephones) and Reliance suggested there was a problem with the Sony server. ‘We forced our way into their server and registered the votes,” a Reliance official said.

What a mess eh? TV text voting can be a dangerous game it seems!