New Delhi: After facing a drubbing in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is chalking out a plan to launch a national protest against the integrity of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), which the holds responsible for its humiliating defeat. The MVA – comprising the Congress, the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray, and NCP faction of Sharad Pawar – also intends to approach the court to return to ballot papers.
On Wednesday, Thackeray and Pawar met MVA candidates who lost in the elections. They asked them to set up legal teams, at the state and national levels, to tackle the issue for the opposition parties.
Pawar urges defeated candidates to seek VVPAT
The MVA has stoutly opposed the outcome of the Maharashtra election. The election was convincingly won by the Mahayuti alliance of the BJP and the Eknath Shinde faction of Sena and Ajit Pawar faction of NCP.
The Mahayuti won 235 of 288 Assembly seats. The BJP won 132 and is all set to lead the next government. The MVA could secure only 49 seats; the Thackeray Sena bagged 20, the Congress 16, and Sharad Pawar’s NCP faction just 10.
Pawar’s party contested 86 seats, and the veteran leader has requested his defeated candidates to seek an analysis of the VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) to confirm the voting numbers. Senior NCP leaders, including Sharad’s grandnephew Rohit Pawar, have pointed to fraud during the vote-counting process.
Similarly, the Congress is also peeved over its low strike rate; the party contested 101 seats and could win only 16. The Sena led by Uddhav fielded 95 candidates but secured just 20 seats.
The INDIA bloc has been protesting against EVMs following its defeat in the Haryana Assembly election last month. On Tuesday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had called for return to ballot papers. He had remarked, “We don’t want EVMs, we want ballot papers.” Nana Patole, the former Maharashtra Congress chief, who resigned from his post after the results were declared, has also spoken against EVMs.
These complaints come after the Supreme Court endorsed EVMs in April, during the Lok Sabha polls, when it turned down a petitioner’s request to return to ballot papers. On Tuesday, the apex court said that: “What happens is, if you win the elections, EVMs are not tampered with. When you lose elections, EVMs are tampered (with).”
