Raj Thackeray Questions EVMs, Wants Paper Ballots for Maha Polls

Raj Thackeray also sought to know how secure the Public Sector Undertakings which manufacture the EVMs are.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Chief Raj Thackeray addressed a press conference in Mumbai on 11 December 2018.

(Photo: IANS)

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Chief Raj Thackeray on Monday, 8 July, submitted a five- page letter to the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, expressing concern over the reliability of EVMs.

Thackeray met with the Chief Election Commissioner and demanded the Assembly polls in the state which are due later this year be conducted through paper ballots instead of Electronic Voting Machines.

Thackeray also cited The Quint’s report in his letter, among others, which stated that there was a difference in the tally between the votes cast and votes counted in nearly 220 Lok Sabha constituencies.

“This gave rise to suspicion in our minds. The doubts over credibility of the EVMs further increased when the Election Commission removed this data from the its website,” he said in the letter.

Thackeray also sought to know how secure the Public Sector Undertakings, Bharat Electronic Ltd and Electronic Corporation of India, which manufacture the EVMs are.

“There are doubts in the minds of voters that the votes they cast do not go to their chosen candidates. In such a scenario, the Election Commission should switch back to paper ballots and conduct the Maharashtra state polls through it. We strongly feel that the EVMs can be tampered with.”

Raj Thackeray told reporters after the meeting

“How do I trust a voting machine in my country that uses chip from another country (USA),” asked the MNS Chief.

“The Election Commission has no answers to the discrepancies in the data of 370 polling booths,” he said, adding that he has no expectation from the Election Commission.

The MNS did not contest the Lok Sabha polls but Thackeray had run an aggressive campaign against the Narendra Modi government. The party contested the 2009 and 2014 Assembly polls in which its tally went down drastically from 13 to one.

(With inputs from PTI)