News18 Daybreak | SC to Hear Plea by 21 Oppn Parties on VVPATs Today and Other Stories You Need to Watch Out For
Less than a month before the national elections, 21 opposition parties have approached the Supreme Court, asking that Electronic Voting Machines be made tinker-proof. A top court bench, led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, would hear their petition today.
Since the 2017 assembly elections, in which the BJP had a sweeping victory in Uttar Pradesh, the opposition contended that the voting machines have been tinkered with at the behest of the BJP.
The petitioners want more safety norms and strict standards for the Electronic Voting Machines. They also want 50 per cent of VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Trail Audit Machines) to be tallied with the voting machines.
The parties that went to court today include the Congress, Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party, Sharad Pawar's NCP, Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party, the Left parties, Ssamajwadi Party and Mayawati.
Mr Kejriwal, whose party fared dismally at the hustings in Punjab, had been one of the most vocal critics of Electronic Voting Machines. Mayawati, whose party has called for a return to paper ballots.
The Election Commission had sought the report of Indian Statistical Institute on how many VVPAT slips per constituency can be counted and tallied with EVM machines. Political parties wanted 10 to 30 per cent of VVPAT slips be counted.
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