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Journalism of Courage
A day after Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel citing public apprehensions made an appeal to use ballot papers for voting instead of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot said the questions surrounding the alleged tampering of EVMs should be answered. “Doubts should be resolved. It is necessary for democracy that the elections are unbiased. Questions raised over EVMs should be answered,” Gehlot told reporters today.
Hardik Patel on Friday had said he had ‘100% doubts about EVMs’. He also said people are apprehensive about their votes being tampered and these allegations are a serious issue. The PAAS leader had also pointed out that voting by ballot papers would take the same time as EVMs.
In the aftermath of the recent Uttar Pradesh civic polls, similar questions were raised by political leaders like Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati. “If BJP thinks that they are honest and transparent then they should conduct all the upcoming elections in the country with ballot paper instead of EVM,” Mayawati had said.
The Samajwadi Party leader had claimed that circumstantial evidence proved that EVMs could be tampered with and the elections could be rigged. “There is a need to replace EVMs with ballot papers,” the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister had said. Yadav supported his arguement by stating that in the recently concluded civic polls, BJP had lost wherever ballot papers were used. He had also commented that independent candidates got zero which means that the votes of the candidate himself and his family’s went to the BJP.
