Oppn to take up cudgels against EVM once again

The Congress is contemplating to convene a meeting of all Opposition parties after the end of the current Parliament session on Friday to take up the cudgels once again against the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

A top party leader said the Congress has no doubt that the EVMs were selectively manipulated in the Gujarat Assembly elections as it concluded after a detailed analysis of the results of each constituency.

It wants to build a consensus among the parties to pressurise the Election Commission to go for counting of the paper votes right from the Assembly elections due in three states of the Northeast – Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland – as it suspects the BJP has been misusing the technology to manipulate the EVM results.

A viewpoint in the Congress is that the Opposition parties should totally boycott the elections in the three states unless the EC agrees to revert back to the paper ballots or counting of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. Such a boycott will be symbolic putting a question mark on the Election Commission hobnobbing with the BJP to help it manipulate EVMs and win the elections, the senior party leader said.

The CPI(M), however, may not buy the boycott idea since it is in power in Tripura for over two decades and any boycott will be suicidal.

A viewpoint in Cong is that Opposition parties should totally boycott elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland unless EC agrees to revert back to paper ballots or counting of the VVPAT slips