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The Opposition parties will meet the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday to demand a structured procedure in cases of mismatch in the voting figures in electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system.
The parties will ask the EC to count all the VVPAT receipts in the Assembly segment, if a mismatch was found.
As per the Supreme Court’s order, counting officials will have to tally the EVMs and VVPAT figures in five polling stations per Assembly segment.
The Opposition has been demanding that at least 50 per cent of the VVPATs should be counted to ensure the transparency in the voting process and to clear doubts over EVMs.
Delegation of Opposition
Various Opposition leaders told reporters on Monday that they will meet the EC officials at 3 pm on Tuesday. The Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Left, the Telugu Desam Party and the Nationalist Congress Party leaders will be part of the delegation.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram yechury said the EC does not have a proper mechanism if mismatch is found in the figures given by EVMs and VVPATs.
“On VVPATs and the EVM tally, the EC is yet to come out with a procedure in case there is a mismatch! Even if there is one mismatch in the EVMs or VVPAT samples picked for counting, to maintain the integrity of the electoral process, all VVPATs in that Assembly segment must be counted,” Yechury demanded.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has been raising this issue with other Opposition leaders during his meeting with them.
In the last two days, he had one-to-one meetings with leaders of the Congress, the Left, the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party.
‘Confident of win’
Despite a negative feedback in the form of exit polls, Opposition is hopeful that the NDA will be defeated when results are finally announced on May 23.
The parties want to make sure that there are no chances for tampering with EVMs and that is the reason they are demanding the counting of all VVPAT votes, too.
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