Opposition Parties May Reject EVM Election Results
The opposition leaders may reject the election result and start a nationwide campaign to get the Lok Sabha election conducted again on paper ballots. This is quite possible.
By Rakesh Raman
Most exit polls after the Lok Sabha election have revealed that PM Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win the election again.
However, major opposition political parties complain about the election frauds that they fear may change the results in BJP’s favour after counting of votes on May 23.
The leaders of 22 opposition parties including Congress, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (CPI-M), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and others met in Delhi today to chalk out the strategy for their protest against the election results.
Their major grouse is that BJP has tampered with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) to win elections, although they have no evidence to support their claim.
You can click here to download the following research paper.
Research Paper: Attack of the Machines on Democracy In India
How EVMs Are Manipulated to Win Elections
Opposition parties also complain that major frauds have happened during the past couple of days during the shifting of EVMs from the polling booths to the counting locations as the actual machines used at the polling booths were secretly replaced by the already loaded machines that will ensure BJP’s victory.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) – which is working in a dubious manner – has dismissed these complaints with the rebuttal that these were unused, reserved machines which were transported after the election. However, the ECI’s defence cannot be verified.
[ BJP Plans to Manipulate EVMs with Fake Exit Polls: Mamata Banerjee ]
Meanwhile, the opposition leaders have submitted a memorandum to the ECI. They have urged that the verification of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips of randomly identified 5 polling booths should be done before starting the counting of votes and not after the completion of last round of counting.
Response on Social Media
There is a massive response from people about the EVMs issue on social media sites such as Facebook. For example, you can check out the users’ response on Facebook Group 1 and Facebook Group 2.
In the memorandum, the opposition leaders have also demanded that if any discrepancy is found anywhere during the VVPAT verification, 100% counting of paper slips of VVPATs of all polling stations of that assembly segment should be done.
While the ECI has not given any firm commitment, it is expected that ECI which is controlled by the Modi government will not comply and BJP will be declared the winning party.
If that happens, the opposition leaders may reject the election results and start a nationwide campaign to get the Lok Sabha election conducted again on paper ballots. This is quite possible.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society. He also creates and publishes a number of digital publications on different subjects.
