The State Election Commission (SEC) has denied charges of widespread malfunctioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs), but assured to put in place a mechanism to assess all such complaints, including those made by opposition parties, senior officials have said.
The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have alleged EVM tampering at several locations during polling for the Assembly elections and the Lok Sabha by-election in Satara on Monday.
State Congress president Balasaheb Thorat on Tuesday wrote to the SEC, demanding that all EVMs be put inside strongrooms and jammers be installed around counting centres. The result of individual rounds must be declared the moment the counting is completed for that round, the Congress leader said. He alleged EVM-related issues at 221 places, including Ghatkopar and Goregaon in Mumbai.
Satyajeet Tambe, president of the Maharashtra Youth Congress, expressed doubts of EVM manipulation on Twitter. “Nobody in Maharashtra believes in #ExitPolls ... Infact people are so furious & angry ... they feel there is serious possibility of EVM tampering. Anger is so bad that it might create a Law & Order situation in state. Election Commision should take care and watch this closely (sic),” he tweeted.
In one of the incidents triggering the complaints, several voters in Navlewadi village of Koregaon constituency in Satara alleged that the VVPAT slip showed votes cast in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when they had voted for a different party.
A senior SEC official said, “These are baseless complaints and it is not possible to divert votes through machines and VVPATs. However, we will look into it.”
In another incident, two people were stopped carrying machines in a private vehicle in Chandrapur. The incident took place in the Ballarpur constituency, from where Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar is contesting. However, officials said the machines were part of the reserve stock and most likely demo machines kept for display purposes with the local offices.
Congress candidate Arif Naseem Khan from Chandivali also claimed to have caught private vehicles ferrying EVMs in his constituency.
According to the SEC’s own report, ballot and control units of EVMs and VVPATs were replaced in 865 instances across the State.
Ahead of the elections, the opposition parties had demanded that paper ballots be used instead of EVMs, and had even announced a protest march on the issue in Mumbai on August 21.
