Polling peaceful in 3 seats, sporadic reports of booth jamming, EVM malfunction
Barring stray incidents, the second phase of polling to three Lok Sabha constituencies went off peacefully, today.
President of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar on Monday cast an aspersion over the veracity and authenticity of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) used by the Election Commission of India, especially following the massive victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, adding that his party would consult technical experts and other Opposition parties over the issue.
“The problem is not with the EVM or VVPAT where the people vote, but with the machine with electoral officer that is finally counted. We are going to go in depth of it now by discussing this with technicians and experts and opposition members in Delhi,” said the Padma Vibhushan awardee.
“If people realise that the vote they are casting is not going for their candidate of choice, they may keep calm now but they may take law into their hands in future. We should not allow that to happen,” ANI quoted Pawar as saying.
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In a veiled reference to BJP Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur, he remarked that giving election tickets to bomb blast accused is an attack on democracy.
Pragya Singh Thakur is one of the accused in the September 2008 Malegaon blasts in which several people were killed and many injured.
“Giving ticket to a woman on whom there are serious charges related to the Malegaon bomb blast is an attempt to break the democracy. It is about the woman who got selected from Madhya Pradesh,” said Pawar while addressing the media in New Delhi.
“The Malegaon bomb blasts happened in a Masjid on Friday. I could not believe that a Muslim could conduct blasts on ‘Juma (Friday)’ that is why I objected to the people first picked up by the agencies. Then Hemant Karkare arrested the one who will sit in Parliament during the President’s address,” he said.
(With agency inputs)
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