Vijayawada: High Court advocate Balaji Yelamanjula filed a House Motion petition (PIL) in the High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission on India (ECI) to conduct counting of the five VVPAT unit slips at the beginning instead of after completion of the last round of EVMs counting. The advocate further sought a direction from the court to the Election Commission of India to count all VVPATs slips in that particular Assembly/Parliamentary constituency where the Discrepancy/variation arises in the counting of five VVPAT unit slips between the EVMs and the VVPAT Unit slips.
Mr Balaji said that the EC had introduced VVPAT units in the general elections for Parliamentary Constituencies all over India and Assembly Constituencies in a few states like AP, Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa, Sikkim, etc. There are nearly 13,00,000 VVPAT Units that have been introduced in the present election. As per the Hand Book for the Counting Agent for the Election 2019, issued by the EC, Clause 14.1, “Mandatory verification of VVPAT Paper Slips of randomly selected one polling station shall be conducted in addition to the provisions of Rule 56D of the conduct of Election Rules, 1961, after the completion of the last round of counting of votes recorded in the EVMs.”
The EC decided to count one VVPAT Unit Slips in Each Assembly Constituency and also Parliamentary Constituency after the EVM counting.
Mr Balaji sought the counting of the 5 VVPAT Unit Slips at the beginning of the Counting instead of later and to count all VVPATs Slips in that particular Assembly/ Parliamentary Constituency
