Ballot paper vs EVMs: 'Fully trust voting machines,' says Ajit Pawar

The Maharashtra deputy CM's statement comes in the wake of reports that the state government may propose a law to allow ballot papers as an option, in addition to EVMs, for all future elections in the state

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday defended the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), saying that political parties blame the machines when they lose elections but, when they win, ‘everything is fine.’ Pawar further stressed that ‘I have full faith in EVMs.’

Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar (File Photo)

“The EVMs were used when Congress came to power in Rajasthan and Punjab. When a party wins an election everything is fine but when they lose badly, they allege that EVM has been managed. For example, Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats but if a party, let’s say, wins only 4-5 seats, its workers say that bumper voting took place in our village so we should’ve won at least 8,000 out of 10,000 votes. Hence, they suspect that something is wrong with the EVM,” the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader said, as per news agency ANI.

“There’s no such thing, EVM works fine. What can I say? I fully trust the EVMs,” Pawar further said.

The Maharashtra deputy chief minister’s remarks come in the wake of Nana Patole, the newly-appointed state Congress chief, directing the state government to explore the option of allowing ballot papers, in addition to EVMs, for all future state and local body elections. Patole had given these directions last week as the Speaker of the Maharashtra assembly; he has since resigned and will take over as the Maharashtra Congress president on Friday.

Maharashtra is governed by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition, comprising the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray is the incumbent chief minister.

Opposition parties have often alleged that the EVMs can be tampered with, demanding that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government bring back the ballot paper system. However, the BJP has defended the machines, saying that they too have lost elections in which EVMs have been used. The Election Commission, too, has rubbished allegations against the machines, saying that these cannot be tampered with.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress, who teamed up for last year’s Bihar assembly elections, had alleged ‘EVM tampering’ after being defeated narrowly by the BJP-led ruling coalition.