Caravan News
NEW DELHI – Raising the issue of ‘unreliability’ of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) yet again, a united Opposition on Sunday threatened to approach the Supreme Court over the issue of malfunctioning and tampering of the machines.
“Questions were raised after the first phase of Lok Sabha elections. If you press the button before X party, vote goes to Y party. VVPAT displays only for 3 seconds, instead of 7 seconds,” Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said as he addressed ‘Save Democracy’ press conference in New Delhi.
He added that the Opposition will legally take this case forward. The press conference was held after a meeting of opposition parties at the Constitution Club of India in Delhi on Sunday.
Abhishek Singhvi, Congress: Names of Lakhs of voters are deleted online without physical verification. There is a long list the parties have given to EC. It has become even more necessary to count at least 50% of the paper trail of VVPAT. We will demand the same in Supreme Court. pic.twitter.com/8afjSxBqOc
— ANI (@ANI) April 14, 2019
He said “The Election Commission is not paying heed to our demand of transparency. Hence we have no other option but to approach the Supreme Court,” Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.
“The Election Commission said if we count the VVPAT slips, it will take them more than five days. We told the ECI to increase the strength of their team. It shouldn’t take five days,” the Congress leader added.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi added that more polling officials are needed to speed up the process.
Calling for more VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) to ensure fair elections, Singhvi raised concern over VVPATs showing the slip for only three seconds when they are supposed to show it for seven.
Singhvi also alleged that the VVPATs were faulty, and alleged that people complained of being shown the slip of a different party tahth they did not vote far.
He also expressed disappointment over people missing from the voters list.
Congress ally TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who was also present at the press conference, said looking into the issue has become a “democratic compulsion”.
“We have been raising this issue for the last several days. There’s prejudice in transfer of the officers. Looking into this matter is democratic compulsion,” Chandrababu Naidu said.