21 Opposition Parties To Move to Election Commission Today Demanding EVM Tracking

Guwahati: Representatives of 21 opposition parties is likely to meet Election Commission officials today two days before counting begins for the Lok Sabha elections, 2019 to be held on May 23.

The representatives of 21 opposition parties will move to EC to make a host of demands including tracking of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and extensive use of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT).

General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), Sitaram Yechury said that the EC is yet to come out with a procedure in case there is a mismatch between the VVPAT and the EVM tally. He said that they want that even for a single mismatch in the VVPAT samples picked for counting and EVMs, all VVPATs in that assembly segment must be counted. This is important to maintain the integrity of the electoral process.

Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Yechury, Congress leaders Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Ahmed Patel along with other representatives were expected to be part of the meeting before the results come out on May 23.

An opposition strategist said that efforts are also on to include senior leaders from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in our delegation. Singhvi said that the 21 opposition parties who represent 75% of the electorate had signed the affidavit in that case and now all these parties will go together to the EC on five major issues signaling our political intent to not give up the fight.

Singhvi maintained that despite the EC’s assurance to the apex court, the poll watchdog has not come out with any guidelines or rule on what to do if there is a discrepancy between VVPAT and the EVM counts.

The opposition parties are skeptical about EVMs and often said that the polling machines are tampered with even as the election commission ruled out any such possibilities. The opposition parties will also demand that the EVM machines should be tracked so that they can be identified with their numbers and location of use.

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