New Delhi: Congress chief and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said, “We don’t want EVMs, we want ballot papers.” His comments came during an event to mark the Constitution Day in the national capital. Kharge expressed concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The party held the EVMs responsible for INDIA bloc’s dismal show during the recent assembly election in Maharashtra. And the Congress president made the remark against this backdrop.
‘In a country where exam papers are leaked, can we blindly trust machines?’
Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh had levelled allegations that the poll result was “brought about by disturbing the level playing field in a targeted way”. Pawan Khera, another party colleague, questioned, “In a country where exam papers are leaked, can we blindly trust machines?”
Congress chief Kharge has raised concerns about EVMs on several occasions in the past as well. At a recent event, he pointed to remarks made by US business tycoon Elon Musk, indicating that such machines could be compromised. “No major Western nation, such as the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, or Italy, uses EVMs,” he had said.
Kharge was also at the center of a heated exchange with the Election Commission after his party put the blame of its loss in Haryana elections on the voting process. Alleging a plot, the Congress party shot off a letter to the poll body, expressing concerns about EVM battery problems and marking 20 constituencies where candidates had submitted both written and verbal complaints about the EVMs during the counting of votes in Haryana.
In the just-concluded Maharashtra assembly polls, the Mahayuti alliance led by the BJP scored a landslide victory over the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The Mahayuti bagged 230 out of 288 seats, with the BJP securing 132, the Shiv Sena 57, and the NCP 41. By contrast, the MVA could secure only 46 seats, with the Congress managing just 16.
