Union min Vijay Goel prays at Bapu's memorial for 'sanity' to opposition leaders questioning EVMs

Union minister Vijay Goel Wednesday held a prayer meeting at Mahatma Gandhi's memorial here for "sanity" to opposition parties, saying they were raising questions over EVMs sensing their defeat in the Lok Sabha polls.

It is "ironical" that EVMs were fine when the leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Amarinder Singh, Mamata Banerjee, and Chandra Babu Naidu won elections and became chief ministers, but the machines turned unreliable when the BJP is predicted to win Lok Sabha polls, Goel said.

He said, "Almost every party blaming EVMs today has come to the power once or multiple times using the same machines, but now when they are set to face defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, they have started blaming the same machines for their loss".

The minister, who was accompanied by sitting BJP MP and party candidate from South Delhi Ramesh Bidhuri and other leaders, administered an oath on the occasion to fight the forces trying to weaken democracy in the country.

Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta "condemned" the opposition parties saying they were "hunting for excuses" in the face of "impending defeat" in the parliamentary polls.

BJP's Chandni Chowk candidate and Union minister Harsh Vardhan said Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister should learn to respect the mandate by people.

"Heads I win and tails you loose will not work anyome Rahul ji and Arvind Kejriwal ji. People of the country are well aware of the trick to hide the defeat by finding faults with EVMs. Learn to respect peoples' mandate," Vardhan tweeted in Hindi.

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said the opposition parties were "baffled" due to fear of defeat.

"Why did not Kejriwal question the EVMs when his party won 67 seats in Delhi Assembly elections in 2015," he said.

Leaders of 22 opposition parties, including Kejriwal, had met the Election Commission on Tuesday and demanded verification of VVPAT slips of randomly-selected polling stations before the counting of votes begins Thursday. The EC on Wednesday rejected the demand.

The leaders of Congress and AAP have been hitting out at the EC and the BJP over the issue raising questions over the electronic voting machines (EVMs).