SP will win UP election, work to abolish EVMs: Akhilesh

Everyone trusts voting through ballots but it cannot be brought back as of now. We will win UP first and then Samajwadi people will be the first to discard the EVMs AKHILESH YADAV, SP chief

KANPUR: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday that after winning the Uttar Pradesh elections, the party would campaign for abolishing voting through electronic voting machines (EVMs).

Predicting victory on 350 seats in next year’s state assembly elections, he said no one trusted the EVMs. In a country like the United States, the presidential elections were held through ballot papers and the counting lasted for several days, he said in Jhansi where he attended a training camp held for party workers.

“Everyone trusts voting through ballots but it cannot be brought back as of now. We will win UP first and then Samajwadi people will be the first to discard the EVMs,” he told reporters.

He did not answer when asked how he would convince the election commission on this issue.

Akhilesh said the farmers did not want the three farm laws, yet the central government was adamant on enforcing them. “The farmers will become labourers on their own fields,” he said, adding that the laws were passed forcibly in Rajya Sabha where the BJP did not enjoy a majority.

He said the government had acquired farmers’ land for the defence corridor but work on it had not begun in four years.

The farmers were debt-ridden and committing suicide, yet the government hadn’t cleared the status of debt waiver as was promised, he said.

Akhilesh said the contest in UP elections would not be as close as in Bihar but one sided. The grand alliance was set to form the government but the BJP did not allow this to happen. In UP, he said, the BJP would face a debacle. “SP will win 350 seats,” he said.