Opposition leaders to meet EC regarding tallying of VVPAT slips with EVM figures

New Delhi, May 21, 2019:

The leaders of various opposition parties will visit the Election Commission (EC) to raise the issue of tallying paper trail of votes (VVPATs) with Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) figures as per Supreme Court directions.

The opposition parties have been demanding tallying of VVPAT slips with EVM figures in an entire Assembly constituency fearing discrepancy in any polling booth.

It is to be mentioned that the court has ordered the EC to tally the VVPAT slips with the EVM figures of five polling stations in each Assembly constituency across India, which may delay the results.

According to reports, leaders of opposition parties- Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Left parties, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) will informally meet on Wednesday to discuss the way forward in case the BJP-led NDA fails to get to the majority mark.

Leaders like Ahmed Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, N Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, Sharad Pawar of the NCP, Satish Chandra Misra of the BSP, D Raja of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Sitaram Yechury of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and Derek O'Brien of the TMC are expected to take part in a meeting to be held today among others.

The opposition leaders have alleged that the EVMs have been "compromised" and "can be manipulated", thus, there should be tallying of its figures with VVPAT slips.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Andhra Pradesh, Naidu continued to voice his suspicions about the alleged manipulation of EVMs. He also mentioned political parties were now busy protecting the machines as there were rumours that the data stored in those was being changed using a frequency.

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