Eighteen Opposition parties led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu have taken the battle over Electronic Voting Machines with the Election Commission to the Supreme Court which will take up their petition on Friday.
The other Opposition leaders joining Naidu in the petition are Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sharad Pawar, National Conference Chairman Farooq Abdullah, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, besides Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra, RLD leader Ajit Singh, Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav, CPI leaders TK Rangarajan and Suvaram Sudhakar Reddy, TMC leader Derek O Brien, DMK leader MK Stalin, RJD leader Manoj Kumar Jha, Janata Dal (Secular) leader Danish Ali, AIUDF leader M Badruddin Ajmal, Hindustani Awam Morcha leader Jitin Ram Manjhi, Naga People's Front leader KG Kenye and two others.
The petition has challenged the EC guideline on counting of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) which currently applies to only 10 per cent of EVMs in each constituency. This would mean that VVPATs from machines from one polling station in each constituency will be accounted for. The Opposition leaders have demanded that since 100 per cent VVPAT installed machines will be used in the coming General Elections, there should be at least 50 per cent counting of VVPAT slips to allay concerns of EVM tampering.
The petition said that this would also assure the safety of EVMs as the results will indicate whether the machines are open to abuse or misuse of any kind. The EC had rejected a similar proposal made by the political parties during an all-party meeting where certain political parties even demanded a return to paper ballot. The Commission, while announcing the poll dates recently, claimed that the fault cannot be with the machines as the same EVMs have given different results when used simultaneously in different elections.
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