16 parties...

In July 2017, during an allparty meeting, the election commission said that all future elections would be conducted with EVMS coupled with VVPATS.

Chief election commissioner OP Rawat has made public statements ruling out reverting to ballot papers in elections. An EC official, who asked not to be named, said the body has also communicated to the political parties to refrain from raising doubts about the efficacy and safety of EVMS and VVPAT machines when the poll outcome is different from what they expect. Rajya Sabha MP and head of BJP’S media cell Anil Baluni said opposition parties only complain about EVMS when they lose elections. “These parties did not appear before the election commission when it invited them to appear before it and prove that EVMS can be tampered with. The problem, actually is not with the EVM but with the intention of parties.”

Experts suggested that EC should work towards increasing confidence in EVMS. “There is no problem with the machines, but there may be some concerns over the process, so EC must address those,” said Jagdeep Chhokar of the election watchdog Association for Democratic Reform. “There were some concerns about the functioning of the Vvpats in the recent by polls; so EC should improve on the technology,” he added. ber was disastrous. “Naidu spoke in an angry tone for a few minutes and left the room. It took others some time to grasp the intensity of the situation. Then, an opposition leader confronted junior minister for parliamentary affairs Vijay Goel and said, “Are we here to listen to a monologue? The chairman doesn’t want to hear us”,” said a political party’s floor leader, who asked not to be named. After that incident, leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and the Trinamool Congress floor leader Derek O’brien decided to stop attending any such meetings.

The opposition camp also pointed out that out of two shortduration discussions and two calling-attention notices taken up in the House, only one was moved by an opposition leader. “Why should a ruling side member be given a chance to seek the attention of the government? This should be a space only for us,” said an opposition leader.

“This is Parliament, not a BJP party office. We urge the chairman to give more chances to the opposition. Where is the space for opposition? We will not allow Parliament to be used as a BJP back garden,” said O’brien.

But a functionary close to the establishment who asked not to be identified rejected all charges against Naidu and said that he has always heard the concerns of the Opposition with patience even as the House has been disrupted without any basis.

“On Wednesday, the Congress created uproar and claimed in the House that Amit Shah should apologise for saying no prime minister since Rajiv Gandhi and those after him had the courage to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. Naidu checked the record of verbatim proceedings of the House and saw that Shah did not make any such references to other PMS during his speech,” the functionary added. Another RS functionary pointed out that a notice from Congress’s Anand Sharma for a calling attention debate had already been admitted. This person added that another debate under a notice from a Rashtriya Janata Dal leader could not happen as the Opposition disrupted the proceedings.

Refuting allegations that Rajya Sabha TV blacked out speeches of some opposition leaders earlier, a senior official of the channel said, “The chairman ordered an inquiry immediately. The allegation was found to be untrue.” Regarding the missing questions, a government official who asked not to be identified said “respective ministries have been authorised to upload questions on RS website and RS secretariat has no hand in this.”