Bhubaneswar: A Junior Accountant of Regulated Market Committee (RMC) was suspended for taking a selfie with EVMs and VVPATs in Odisha's Sundargarh district during the elections.

After the photo went viral on social media, a social worker namely Rajkumar Yadav had filed a complaint with the District Collector demanding re-polling and action against the accused.

The Collector had directed the Panposh Sub-collector to carry out a probe into the incident.

As per the report submitted by the Panposh Sub-collector, staffers of the RMC were called for duty as there was shortage of manpower for packing and dispatching of EVMs and VVPATs to the district office after conclusion of counting of votes.

During that time, Ajay Kumar Pradhan, Junior Accountant of RMC, had taken a selfie at the veranda of strongroom, which was treated as gross negligence in duty and misconduct of service rule.

It was violation of service rule 15 of Orissa Civil Services (CCA) Rules, 1962.

On the basis of the report, Pradhan was suspended from service until further order.

As the counting was completed and results were declared, the selfie had no impact on results and the demand for re-polling was baseless, the Sub-collector said in the report.