Raising doubts about manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the Telangana assembly polls, the state unit of the Congress on Tuesday demanded to count of all VVPATs (Voter-verifiable paper audit trail).
As the Congress steered for a comprehensive defeat at the hands of commanding TRS, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N Uttam Kumar Reddy also claimed that the Election Commission denied accepting the party’s demand for counting of VVPATs.
He said adding that his party has petitioned the state Chief Electoral Officer here and the Election Commission in the national capital for counting the VVPATs.
The VVPAT also called as paper trail machine is a device which dispenses a slip with the symbol of the party for which an individual has voted for. The slip usually appears on a small window for about 7 seconds and then drops in a box and gives an indication to the voter to verify his or her vote.
“For these doubts to be cleared to some extent, we demanded VVPAT, paper trails, to be counted 100 per cent in all constituencies,” he told reporters here.
The voting patterns including the count of votes polled in the EVMs were totally different, Reddy claimed and accused the EC of resisting the demand for VVPAT counting.
“The whole Telangana society has doubts on EVMs. Why the EC is not counting every paper trail linked to Electronic Voting Machines… delaying result by four-five hours. The Commission does not have a proper answer,” the TPCC chief said.
He further added that it would be a “black day” for democracy in Telangana if paper trails were not counted properly and said what was the actual purpose of the VVPATs.
“We have to say Election Commission is murdering democracy along with KCR (TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao),” he said.
“Election has to be transparent. Why is it that the Election Commission is not agreeing to counting of the VVPAT paper trails. What is the purpose of having VVPAT paper trails if they are not to be counted,” the Congress leader said.
The party would soon start a comprehensive analysis of the poll outcome, he said.
Previously, in the day, Reddy in a conversation by the Congress said all party candidates should submit letters to their returning officers demanding counting of VVPAT paper trails.
Congress which led an alliance with the likes of TDP, CPI and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) has by far won 15 seats out of the 99 seats it contested. Of the overall alliance partners, the TDP won two seats while the others failed to get a result.
(Inputs from PTI)
