Mamata to launch campaign against EVMs, call for bringing back ballot paper

Plans to meet all major opposition parties with this agenda; claims Election Commission verified only 2% of EVMs, no guarantee that remaining 98% were not tampered with

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that she would launch a campaign to bring back the practice of voting via ballot papers instead of EVMs, and will be meeting all major opposition parties in the country with this agenda.

Raising questions over the authenticity of such EVMs, Banerjee claimed that only two per cent of these machines were verified by the Election Commission (EC) while there was no guarantee that the rest 98 per cent of such voting machines were not tampered with.

“In course of the election, EVMs had developed problems and had to be replaced. The replacements were not checked by the EC. What is the guarantee that those EVMs didn’t come pre-loaded with votes already cast,” she asked the media in Kolkata after a meeting.

In the last leg of the Lok Sabha polls, several EVM failures across Diamond Harbour, Joynagar, Barasat, Dum Dum and both the constituencies of Kolkata were reported. The EC had said the necessary arrangements were being made to replace the faulty machines.

Hinting that the BJP had tampered with the EVMs, she wondered how the saffron party was confident about winning 20 or more Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.

Citing the example of the US, Banerjee said that globally, technologically developed nations have retained the custom of voting via ballot papers, but despite protests from opposition parties, voting took place electronically via EVMs in India.

With a slogan, “Save democracy, want ballot and not EVMs”, she said she would be meeting major opposition parties and urged them to come up with a fact finding operation to detect possibilities of tampering votes under the electronic system.

This will also be her slogan for the upcoming rally on July 21 this year. Every year, on this day, the TMC organises a mass rally in the historic Brigade Parade Ground in the state’s capital to commemorate the 1993 Kolkata firing when 13 people were killed by the police during a rally. The protestors were demanding Voter ID card to be the sole acceptable document to exercise suffrage.

Days before the poll results were declared, protests erupted in Uttar Pradesh after videos of alleged movement and tampering of EVMs were shared in large numbers on social media platforms. It hen had led former president of India, Pranab Mukherjee to publicly ask the EC to put speculations at rest.

Previously, when the exit poll predictions were out after the elections concluded, Banerjee had stated, “I don’t trust Exit Poll gossip. The game plan is to manipulate or replace thousands of EVMs through this gossip. I appeal to all Opposition parties to be united, strong and bold. We will fight this battle together”.

The Congress, besides other opposition parties, have also raised the issue of electronic rigging in the elections via EVMs.