Contrary to Farooq Abdullah, Nitish Kumar favours use of EVMs

PATNA: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Monday said that electronic voting machines (EVMs) are the right option to conduct election in the country.

“Use of EVMs is the right option. Large number of people began turning up at the polling booths only after the EVMs came in use. It has increased percentage of voting,” Nitish told reporters during his weekly ‘Lok Samvad’ programme here.

Nitish’s statement came just two days after former Jammu and Kashmir CM Farooq Abdullah referred the EVMs as “Chor Machine” at the united opposition rally organised by TMC chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Saturday.

Speaking at Kolkata rally, the National Conference leader had said, “The EVM is ‘chor machine.’ Honestly speaking, it is so. Its use must be stopped. Nowhere in the world this machine is used.”

Abdullah also demanded that the ballot paper system should be brought back for the sake of transparency. “The opposition parties should approach the Election Commission as well as the President of India to stop use of the EVMs and bring back the ballot papers for the sake of transparency,” Abdullah had said.

Contrary to Abdullah’s stand, Nitish, who is also the JD(U) president, categorically said that the use of EVMs brought more transparency in the voting system. He said that every polling booth should have arrangement of the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs) to ensure more transparency.

Responding to a query, Bihar CM further said a delegation of JD(U) recently met the chief election commissioner (CEC) during his recent Patna visit and urged him for arrangement of 100% VVPATs across the state.

“JD(U) also suggested the CEC to make necessary arrangement for proper distribution of electors’ slip to every household so that people could easily go to their identified booth to cast vote. Currently, the electors’ slip is handed over to someone and he doesn’t distribute it to each household,” Nitish said while strongly favouring the use of EVMs in election.