HC reserves order on plea for EVMs for TN local body polls

The Madras High Court today reserved its order on a batch of petitions by DMK, seeking a direction to the State Election Commission to use electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the October 24 local body polls.
A division bench comprising Justices Huluvadi G Ramesh and K Ravichandra Baabu, which heard arguments by counsel for the Commission and DMK, reserved its orders.
The bench had yesterday directed the Commission to file a detailed counter affidavit on EVMs required for conducting local body polls, reserved segments and proposed rotation of reserved segments, which is mandatory once in 10 years.
DMK had sought relief in four matters -- reservation/ rotation of reserved constituencies, use of EVMs in all civic segments, deployment of central government or public sector staff for poll duty and hosting candidate information on the official website of State Election Commission.

When the matter came up, State Election Commission submitted that 5,98,406 EVMs are needed for local body polls, entailing a financial burden of Rs 515 crore.
DMK contended that local body polls in Maharashtra, where there are 28,000 panchayats, had seen use of only 1.8 lakh EVMs.

Tamil Nadu has only 12,000 panchayatsand the number mentioned by SEC may not be correct, the party said.
Justice Ramesh orally observed that a positive approach should be shown by SEC and that there is still one more month for the polls. "If there is any difficulty, try to solve it," he said.

He also advised SEC to improve its standard of holding polls and said that by using EVM's, manpower, time and other expenses can be saved and elections made foolproof.
DMK's counsel said nearly about 12 lakh EVMs are with Election Commission of India and noted that local body polls in October would be held only in Tamil Nadu and nowhere else. So SEC could very well get the EVMs from ECI, he said.