‘Rigged’ EVMs transferred AAP votes to SAD-BJP: Kejri
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal claimed on Wednesday that rigged voting machines transferred his party’s votes to the SAD-BJP combine in Punjab while BSP chief Mayawati said she would seek court help for a probe into “tampering” in Uttar Pradesh.
Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party finished a distant second in Punjab with 20 seats, as the Congress stormed to power with 77 in the 117-member assembly. Kejriwal alleged that around 20-25% of his party’s votes may have been “transferred” to the SAD-BJP because EVMs were tinkered with. “Many said that there is anger against Akalis and AAP is sweeping the polls. Still, AAP got 25% votes and SAD got 31%. How is that possible?” Kejriwal said.
While he took responsibility for the poor performance, Kejriwal demanded that the Election Commission count votes of verifiable paper trail-enabled EVMs to “restore credibility of the EVMs”.
The poll panel had paper-trail EVMs in some polling booths. The paper is a printout that allows a voter to see if the vote has gone to the candidate it was intended for.
“Developed countries have given up EVMs. Should we not rethink? Even the BJP including (LK) Advaniji had said EVMs can be tampered with,” said Kejriwal, who has asked for ballot papers to be used in the next month’s Delhi civic elections.
In Lucknow, Mayawati repeated similar charges. The BJP’s victory smacked of “fraud”, she said, adding her party would observe 11th of every months as a black day against the “murder of democracy” by the saffron party.
Within hours of declaration of results, Mayawati alleged widespread tampering and wrote to the EC, demanding a fresh election. The poll panel wrote back that EVMs couldn’t be tampered with and there was no merit to her claims.
Rejecting the reply, Mayawati told mediapersons on Wednesday, “The BSP will file a petition in the court on this issue (probe
into tampering)... EVMs were tampered with to transfer the BSP votes to BJP.”
The BJP hit back and asked the former UP chief minister to gracefully accept the people’s mandate. “When you win, EVMs are right. When you lose, EVMs are wrong. This shows that there are some defects in you (Mayawati),” Union minister M Venkaiah said.