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Journalism of Courage
Hours after the Supreme Court rejected their petition seeking review of its judgment rejecting 50 per cent random physical verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) using Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), leaders of 21 opposition parties approached the Election Commission and asked the poll panel to suo motu increase physical counting of VVPAT slips from five random EVMs in each Assembly segment.
The Opposition delegation told the EC that the apex court has not prevented the poll panel from increasing physical counting beyond five EVMs.
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The Opposition camp argued that the court’s dismissal of its review petition was not a setback and vowed to continue its “fight for transparency” in the election process.
Top Opposition leaders led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah and CPI’s D Raja were present in Supreme Court when it rejected the review petition.
Naidu said: “We respect the Supreme Court’s order…but the party will not give up, and (will) continue its fight for transparency in the election process. It’s critical for EC to work transparently to ensure free and fair elections.”
Raja said: “In the larger interest of our democracy and voters’ confidence in the electoral system, we are knocking at the doors of the Supreme Court and the Election Commission repeatedly. They are all constitutional bodies. We respect these institutions. We want to ensure that voters are confident in our electoral system; the electoral process must be free and fair.” By evening, Opposition leaders, led by Congress’s Abhishek Singhvi, was at the Election Commission’s office, and had a one-hour meeting with the Election Commissioners.
Singhvi told The Indian Express, “Yes, the Supreme Court has not agreed to our demand to increase physical counting of VVPAT slips beyond five EVMs, but there is no prohibition on the EC to suo motu increase…. The Supreme Court has not prohibited the EC. The EC should increase it in the interest of confidence-building measures.”
Singhvi also told the EC that the follow-up procedure in the event of detection of any mismatch in one or more of the five EVMs on physical check has not been laid out. Suppose, he said, “if in the auto sample check, something is found erroneous or vitiated, what step the EC will take next is not published in the rules yet. So we said the automatic consequence must be counting of all VVPATs in that Assembly constituency, not just the ones showing a mismatch…”
