Rajat Sharma, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, India TV.
In Maharashtra, the Congress, Uddhav’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP are still unwilling to accept defeat. Mahavikas Aghadi leaders are now preparing for an agitation against the EVM. Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with his party’s defeated candidates and directed them to file a petition for 5 per cent EVMs to match the VVPAT in assembly constituencies where there are doubts about EVMs. Since the rule is that up to five days after counting, any candidate in any assembly segment can request to cross-check the results of the voting machines with the VVPAT.
Since the recount in Maharashtra took place on November 23, the last day to file a comparison petition before the VVPAT is Thursday. Therefore, Uddhav’s party leaders are likely to move similar petitions tomorrow in most assembly seats.
Sharad Pawar has also instructed his party’s defeated candidates to collect evidence of irregularities through EVM. After this, Nana Patole also announced that the Congress will carry out a signature campaign against the EVM across Maharashtra. Patole said people’s votes were stolen in Maharashtra, so Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi will fight for ballot voting instead of EVM.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has already demanded that ballot papers be used instead of EVMs. Congress’ argument regarding the Maharashtra elections is that its alliance had won 30 of 48 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. How can there be only 48 seats out of 288 in the Assembly after five months?
The Congress leaders forgot that the BJP had won 7 of the 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in June 2019. The assembly elections were held after 8 months. The BJP won only 8 seats out of 70. Leave a little before this. In 2014, the BJP had won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi by a huge margin, but when elections were held a few months later, Kejriwal achieved a historic victory, winning 67 of 70 seats. So how does a voter change their mind in a few months?
The proof of this is before us. When the BJP was stuck at 240 in the Lok Sabha elections, EVM was excellent for the Congress, neither raising doubts on the battery nor getting the VVPAT. If the BJP had crossed 300 seats at that time, the Congress would have definitely said that the EVMs were rigged. Rahul Gandhi would have already taken out the Ballot Yatra.
After the defeat in Haryana, the Congress raised doubts on the EVM. He mentioned about 99 percent of the machines’ battery life. The Electoral Commission sent a 1,500-page response. When a question was asked about the VVPAT counting, the Election Commission said that 4 million votes were counted through VVPAT and not a single error was found.
Another interesting thing is that when complaints about EVMs first came, the Election Commission organized a Hackathon. He said that whoever has a complaint should come and show the trick, but no one came. Questions about the EVM have been repeatedly raised in the Supreme Court. Even if every petition has been rejected by the court, if someone has some evidence, some genuine basis, then he can definitely complain, but speaking in the air without evidence, about questions that have already been answered, it is not right to raise the application. again and again.
It is not good for democracy to say that EVM is right in Jharkhand and wrong in Maharashtra. Because when people have doubts about the electoral process, the situation becomes like our neighbor Pakistan (Rajat Sharma).
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