In Maharashtra, Congress, Uddhav’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP are still not ready to accept their defeat. Leaders of Mahavikas Aghadi are now preparing to protest against EVMs. Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with his party’s defeated candidates and directed them to file petitions to match 5 percent of EVMs with VVPATs in assembly constituencies where EVMs are in doubt. The rule is that up to five days after the counting of votes, any candidate in any assembly constituency can request to match the voting machine results with the VVPAT.
As the counting of votes in Maharashtra took place on November 23, Thursday is the last day to file petitions for matching with VVPAT. Hence, it is likely that Uddhav’s party leaders will file such petitions in most assembly seats tomorrow.
Sharad Pawar has also instructed his party’s defeated candidates to collect evidence of malpractice through EVMs. After this, Nana Patole also announced that the Congress would conduct a signature campaign against EVMs across Maharashtra. Patole said that the people’s votes have been stolen in Maharashtra, so the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress will fight for voting through ballots instead of EVMs.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has already demanded that ballot papers should be used instead of EVMs. The Congress’ argument regarding the Maharashtra elections is that their alliance won 30 out of 48 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. How can only 48 out of 288 seats remain in the Legislative Assembly after five months?
Congress leaders forgot that BJP won 7 out of 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in June 2019. Assembly elections were held after 8 months. BJP got only 8 seats out of 70. Leave a little before this. In 2014, the BJP won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi by huge margins, but when the elections were held a few months later, Kejriwal achieved a historic victory by winning 67 of the 70 seats. So how can a voter change their mind in a few months?
The proof of this is in front of us. While the BJP stalled at 240 in the Lok Sabha polls, the EVM was great for the Congress, neither questioning the battery nor getting a VVPAT. If BJP had crossed 300 seats at that time, Congress would have definitely said that the EVMs have been tampered with. Rahul Gandhi must have left for polling by now.
After the defeat in Haryana, Congress has raised questions about EVMs. About 99 percent of the machines have batteries mentioned. The Election Commission sent a 1500-page reply. When questioned on the number of VVPATs, the Election Commission said that 4 crore votes were counted by VVPATs and not a single error was found.
Another interesting point is that the Election Commission organized a hackathon when complaints about EVMs were first raised. Said, whoever has a complaint should come and show the hack but no one came. EVMs have been repeatedly questioned in the Supreme Court. Even if every plea is rejected by the court, if someone has any evidence, any real basis, he can certainly complain, but talking in the air without evidence, which has already been answered, is not worth picking up. Again and again
It is not good for democracy to say that EVMs are right in Jharkhand and wrong in Maharashtra. Because when people doubt the electoral process, the situation becomes like our neighbor Pakistan (Rajat Sharma)
Watch: ‘Aaj Ki Baat, Rajat Sharma Saath’ Full Episode 27th November 2024
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