Maha elections: Ballot paper history, EVMs to be used, says EC

In the backdrop of the Opposition parties’ demand to conduct elections on ballot papers, Chief Election Commissioner of India (CEC) Sunil Arora on Wednesday said

In the backdrop of the Opposition parties’ demand to conduct elections on ballot papers, Chief Election Commissioner of India (CEC) Sunil Arora on Wednesday said the ballot paper was history and that all future elections, including the upcoming Assembly elections, will be held on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

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He said the EVMs were tamper-proof and that the EC’s stance was backed by the Supreme Court (SC).

Arora and his team reviewed the election preparations in Mumbai, on Wednesday.

“We have clarified time and again that EVMs are tamper proof. Like any other mechanical device, the EVMs can malfunction, but cannot be tampered with. The SC, too, had backed our contention and had asked us to verify votes in five VVPATs per Assembly constituency. We have launched an awareness drive for voters about the foolproof mechanism of EVMs,” he said.

Arora’s team comprised deputy election commissioners.

They met various stakeholders, including political parties. It met officials from the state and central regulatory agencies, such as income tax, excise, sales tax, and also took stock of the deployment of security forces.

Political parties, including the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), during their meetings with the commission on Wednesday, had demanded elections to be conducted on ballot papers. Arora has however turned down the demand, saying “ballot paper is history now”.

Arora, who refused to discuss the Assembly elections dates for Maharashtra, said the commission will take into consideration important events such as festivals like Diwali, exams and school holidays.

Expressing satisfaction over the preparations by the state unit of the commission, the chief election commissioner (CEC) said they have been directed to shift all polling stations to the ground floor for the convenience of elderly voters. “Barring a couple of polling stations, all have been shifted from higher floors and the ones that are on the upper floors have functional lifts in the buildings. We have also increasing the number of expenditure observers to curb the black money in circulation during electioneering. We held a discussion on the demand of additional deployment of central forces,” he said.

Besides ballot papers, the Congress had raised the issue of duplicate and bogus names of about 44 lakh voters on the electoral rolls. The party said voters in large numbers have been registered in different constituencies with the same picture and that this may lead to bogus voting. Arora said a similar complaint was made by the party even ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and it has been addressed by our state unit. The party has been given the reply in detail with the action taken and number of names deleted.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena and NCP had demanded the expenditure limit to be increased to ₹70 lakh per candidate from the existing limit of ₹28 lakh. Arora said there was no need to increase the limit of expenditure.