Soon after reports of a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) attached to the Electronic Voting machine (EVM) in Madhya Pradesh disbursing only slips with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) symbol surfaced, the members of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress approached the Election Commission and requested them to take cognisance of the situation.
Following this development, the EC has sent a team of officials to Madhya Pradesh and probe the matter. The election commission have directed the officials to submit a report before the by polls scheduled to take place on April 9. Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav also urged the Election Commission to look into the matter.
“There should be an inquiry after the electronic voting machine in Madhya Pradesh were only dispensing BJP slips,” Akhilesh Yadav tweeted. “We have sought a detailed report from district election officer and would come up with a response in the evening,” a Commission spokesperson told PTI.
As per a report in PTI, a Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Madhya Pradesh, Saleena Singh also told the journalists to report in the newspapers and threatened to detain them.
This comes days after BJP registered a historic win in the state of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, following which Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Chief went on to claim that the EVMs were tampered with and demanded a probe. Soon after this, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal approached the EC requesting them to conduct the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi Election (MCD) using ballot papers and not EVMs, However, EC dismissed his requests and affirmed that the allegations were baseless and that the EVMs used in India were best in the world.
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