EVM verification a bid to placate party workers: Sujay Vikhe-Patil

In a major upset in Ahmednagar constituency, Nilesh Lanke of the NCP-Sharad Pawar faction had cut short BJP candidate Sujay Vikhe-Patil’s chances of being re-elected for a second term as MP.

Lanke emerged victorious and won the Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 28,929 votes. Lanke had polled 6,24,797 votes while Vikhe-Patil (son of state revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil) polled 5,95,878 votes. There were 24 candidates in the fray and a total of 13,22,195 valid votes were polled.

Ahmednagar district collector S Salimath confirmed that Vikhe-Patil had deposited money amounting to Rs 19 lakh for the verification of 40 EVMs. “As per the ECI directives, the losing candidate may apply for checking and verification of EVM within 7 days of counting. The charge is Rs 40,000 +GST (18 %) per set of EVMs,” he said.

The collector said that after 45 days (election petition period) the Election Commission of India will issue a schedule of the verification process . “The EVM engineer will verify in the presence of the candidate,” Salimath added.

Vikhe-Patil said they have sought verification of five EVMs each at Rahuri, Shevgaon, Ahmednagar and Karjat-Jamkhed assembly constituencies and the remaining from Parner and Shrigonda. Vikhe-Patil claimed that the party workers were keen on understanding details at certain voting booths.

“There has been significant developments and solutions had been arrived at some of the booths that had faced issues in the past. Hence to satisfy our party workers, I decided to apply for the verification and checking of EVMs at some of these booths,” he said.

Here it may be noted that this election was not a cakewalk for Vikhe-Patil despite his family being a dominant force in the cooperative sector and political scene in Ahmednagar for over six decades. Resentment and anger over onion prices among farmers and not lifting the ban on exports apart from the Maratha reservation issue were among the key factors that led to Vikhe-Patil’s defeat in the LS polls.