New Delhi: The Opposition parties on Sunday once again raised the issue of the alleged hacking of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and said they planned to move the Supreme Court to demand verification of at least 50 per cent of all votes by a paper trail.
Highlighting the issue of transparency in the electoral process, the parties, including the Congress, Telugu Desam, Samajwadi Party, CPM, CPI and the AAP, sought protection of voters’ rights with a call to “save democracy”.
While Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal accused the ruling BJP of “programming” the EVMs to win the Lok Sabha elections, his Andhra Pradesh counterpart, N. Chandrababu Naidu, said 21 political parties had sought the verification of VVPAT paper trails of 50 per cent of all EVMs.
On Saturday, Mr Naidu had met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora to raise the issue of EVMs’ malfunctioning, but was rebutted by the CEC, who said the expert fielded by him had run into trouble with the commission over hacking.
The SC had on Monday directed the EC to increase the random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs to five polling booths per Assembly segment, from one at present, in the LS polls, saying it would provide greater satisfaction not just to the political parties but the entire electorate.
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