Digvijaya Singh says EVM can be manipulated, suggests an alternative

Singh has suggested all political parties who requested CEC to do away with EVM and return to Ballot Box to consider his suggestion

Amidst polling in Maharashtra and Haryana for the Assembly elections, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has suggested the Election Commission a "reliable system of a combination of EVM and Ballot Box", and urged all political parties to consider this option.

Citing a news report, Singh in a series of tweets wrote, "Haryana-Maharashtra Elections 2019: Here is how EVM-VVPAT can be manipulated due to a major technical glitch. EC is aware of lacuna but continues to be silent."

Singh said if the CEC still insists on EVMs, then he has a request. "After pressing the button on ballot unit instead the Voter seeing the picture on the screen for 7 seconds the printer should give the Voter printed vote in his hand which he can physically put in a ballot box," he tweeted.

"Now the argument put forward by CEC would be that the counting would take a lot of time. As it stands today CEC picks up 5 booths randomly and checks the printed vote as per Supreme Court order," he added.

He went on to add, "If the voter has put the printed vote in a Ballot Box then he or the candidates or the political parties can't complain. And the time taken would be the same. So it would be a reliable system of a combination of EVM and Ballot Box."

Singh has suggested all political parties who requested CEC to do away with EVM and return to Ballot Box to consider this option for a "greater reliability in our elections which would strengthen our Democracy and again call a meeting to consider this option."

"If the number of votes in the Ballot Box don't match the number in the counting unit then all the polling booth votes in that constituency should be counted through Ballot Boxes and then only the result should be declared," he wrote.