Congress' Telangana unit demand ballot papers for LS polls

The Congress' Telangana unit Thursday alleged that election authorities did not respond adequately to concerns over counting of votes in the recent State Assembly polls and demanded that ballot papers be used in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, who was addressing a 'protest against failures of Election Commission of India', alleged that all VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) were not counted (in Assembly polls) where the party made a demand for it.

"In the total 119 constituencies in Telangana, not even in a single constituecny, VVPATs were counted 100 per cent," he said.

In Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh (where Assembly polls were held along with Telangana), VVPATs were counted when candidates said they did not have enough confidence in EVMs, he claimed.

The election results in Rajasthan continued to pour in till the next morning, he said.

Recalling his conversations with top election officials on counting of votes, he alleged that the election authorities did not agree for his request to take up counting of all VVPATs in constituencies where the margin of victory was less than one per cent.

"Ballot papers used to be counted again, in the era of ballot papers, if the margin of victory is less than one per cent," Reddy said.

"Never before in India, the Election Commission faced allegations and doubts like it does today," he said.

Leader of Opposition (Congress) in Telangana Assembly M Bhatti Vikramarka, TDP's Telangana unit president L Ramana, Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) president M Kodandaram and CPI state secretary Chada Venkat Reddy participated in the protest, orgainsed by the Congress party.