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Opposition wants Election Commission to clear doubts over EVMs

The opposition will petition the Election Commission on Monday over the role of Electronic Voting Machines and urge it to clear doubts about them in the minds of people.

Published: 02nd February 2019 08:18 AM  |   Last Updated: 02nd February 2019 08:18 AM   |  A+A A-

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and NCP president Sharad Pawar during a press conference after the opposition parties met to discuss various political issues | Naveen Kumar

By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The opposition will petition the Election Commission on Monday over the role of Electronic Voting Machines and urge it to clear doubts about them in the minds of people.“On EVM, we have put together a document. We are going to the Election Commission with this document on Monday and we have some proposals - distinct proposals,” Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said after a meeting of opposition leaders on Friday.

“The main issue with the EVMs is that there is doubt in the minds of many, many people in this country about the fairness of the functioning of the EVM, and so we want to create a back-up system so that people can be certain about what is going on. It is about building the confidence of people in the electoral process,” he said.

Sources said the opposition parties may urge the Election Commission to physically count some percentage of the VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail) to match it with the EVM results.
The opposition parties are likely to point out that only two or three countries in the world are using EVMs, and the rest have reverted to the ballot paper system following complaints of EVM malfunction.
The Congress has already said that the EC should ensure counting of the paper trail in 50 per cent of the booths across the country. 

Opposition members said there had been many instances of EVM malfunction in the past, which had made voters suspicious. They also said that various hackers had claimed the machines could be tampered with, but the EC had rejected such claims. However, in the interest of democracy it was incumbent upon the poll panel to ensure there were no doubts in the minds of the voters about the role of EVMs.

The opposition parties also discussed the jobs scenario, in which they said PM Narendra Modi and the BJP had failed completely, besides the farm crisis and the alleged attack on autonomy of institutions. 
“We are going to discuss jobs, agriculture and systematic attack on institutions that the government is carrying out,” Rahul said.