Congress, NCP bat for Pune civic polls on ballot paper

PUNE: Following the success in graduate and teachers’ constituency polls, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) local units have demanded municipal

PUNE: Following the success in graduate and teachers’ constituency polls, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) local units have demanded municipal corporation polls to be conducted on ballot paper instead of electronic voting machine (EVM).

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Congress leader and former city unit president Abhay Chhajed said, “Many developed countries with better technology are still holding elections on ballot paper. The recently US elections were conducted on ballot papers and the results were declared after two-three days. Why are we in a hurry? We are using EVM for fast counting of votes.”

Chhajed said, “There are some doubts in the mind of political workers and voters. It is my opinion that polls should be conducted on ballot paper. I am following the issue with state-level leaders for the municipal elections slated in a year. Even senior leaders are shown positive response.”

NCP city unit president and MLA Chetan Tupe said, “Many political parties have raised objections for EVM. Recently in the graduate constituency, elections were held on ballot paper and results are different. For the last many years, it is considered that the educated and middle class are not voting for the Congress and NCP. The BJP also carried out maximum voter registrations. Yet, for the first time, the Congress and NCP made history in the graduate constituency. The outcome was same in Nagpur and other regions.”

Tupe said, “It shows that graduate and middle-class people are voting for the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena too. The EVM practice shows that they are not our voters. We claim that if the elections are conducted on ballot paper, the results in municipal elections will also be different.”