Union Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended electronic voting machines (EVMs) asserting that the Opposition was crying foul after losing elections but it conveniently forgot that the same EVMs had voted them in power earlier.
The Modi government's silence on probing question to make Rs 3,100 crore available to the Election Commission (EC) for rapid installation of voter verification paper audit trail (VVAPT) machines led to a walkout by most of the Opposition parties in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
Responding to the short duration discussion on electoral reforms, Union Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended electronic voting machines (EVMs) asserting that the Opposition was crying foul after losing elections but it conveniently forgot that the same EVMs had voted them in power earlier.
"If we had so much power (to manipulate EVMs) we would have won Bihar and Delhi too... EVMs don't make or break fortune; voters do...," said Prasad.
Inviting reaction from the Opposition benches, Prasad said, "After hearing the MPs, it seems they are unable to digest our win. This is an insult to the people's mandate...We think you are not going to come in power for a long time."
Opposition protested again, when Prasad started reading long judgement of High Court cases on EVMs. BSP leader SC Misra accused Prasad of reading selective parts of the judgement.
"All what the law minister is reading are the judgement of old High Court that were contested by their own leader Subramanian Swamy and were elaborately discussed in Supreme Court after which it passed the order in 2013 making VVPAT an indispensable part of the EVMs to ensure free and fair elections," Misra said.
Not ready to yield, Prasad said, "EVMs solved casting of invalid votes which was a major achievement as in the pre-EVM era there used to be several cases when number of invalid votes polled used to be more than the difference of winner and the runner up," said Prasad.
There was uproar from the opposition benches when Prasad said the VVPATs will be installed in a phased manner as the EC will have to look at logistics of where to keep and how to ferry them and government will have find ways to ensure safety. Order for 57,000 VVPATS was given of which 33,000 have been received, Prasad said.
Asking a pointed question, leader of opposition, Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "After 2014 elections, on Supreme Court's directions, the EC started writing letters to the government for making Rs. 3100 crore available for VVPATs. The twelfth reminder to the Prime Minister was an SOS. Answer why did not you release money for last three years? And if you cannot ensure security of machines how can you secure India?"
Azad salvo found many takers in the opposition that was left wanting on the same question earlier by finance minister Arun Jaitley while replying to the debate on appropriation bill, 2017.
Accusing the government for not interested in free and fair elections, Misra said if 10,000 VVPATs are being supplied every year, it will take 160 years to have all the machines.
Prasad also did not reply to an interesting suggestion by NCP leader Praful Patel to use all the available VVPATs in upcoming Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections.
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