Rajat Sharma, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of India TV.
In Maharashtra, Congress, Uddhav’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP are still not ready to accept their defeat. Leaders of Mahavikas Aghadi are now preparing for agitation against EVM. Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with the defeated candidates of his party and directed them to file a petition to get 5 percent of EVMs matched with VVPAT in the assembly constituencies where there is doubt on EVMs. Since the rule is that till five days after the counting, any candidate in any assembly segment can request to match the results of the voting machines with the VVPAT.
Since counting in Maharashtra took place on November 23, the last day to file petition for matching with VVPAT is Thursday. Therefore, it is possible that leaders of Uddhav’s party may file such petitions tomorrow on most of the assembly seats.
Sharad Pawar has also instructed the defeated candidates of his party to collect evidence of irregularities through EVMs. After this, Nana Patole also announced that Congress will run a signature campaign against EVM in entire Maharashtra. Patole said that people’s votes were stolen in Maharashtra, hence Congress, under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, will fight for voting through ballot instead of EVM.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has already demanded that ballots should be used instead of EVMs. Congress’s argument regarding Maharashtra elections is that their alliance had won 30 out of 48 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. How can there be only 48 seats out of 288 in the Assembly after five months?
Congress leaders forgot that BJP had won 7 out of 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in June 2019. Assembly elections were held after 8 months. BJP got only 8 seats out of 70. Leave a little before this. In 2014, BJP had won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi by a huge margin but when elections were held a few months later, Kejriwal achieved a historic victory, securing 67 out of 70 seats. So how does a voter change his mind in a few months?
The proof of this is in front of us. When BJP was stuck at 240 in Lok Sabha elections, EVM was great for Congress, neither raised questions on battery nor got VVPAT. If BJP had crossed 300 seats at that time, Congress would have definitely said that EVMs were tampered with. Rahul Gandhi would have taken out the Ballot Yatra by now.
After the defeat in Haryana, Congress raised questions on EVM. Mentioned about 99 percent battery of the machines. The Election Commission sent a reply of 1500 pages. When a question was asked on the tally of VVPAT, the Election Commission said that 4 crore votes were tallied through VVPAT and not a single mistake was found.
Another interesting thing is that when complaints about EVMs came for the first time, the Election Commission organized a Hackathon. Said, whoever has complaint should come and show hack but no one came. Questions regarding EVM have been raised repeatedly in the Supreme Court. Even if every petition has been rejected by the court, if someone has any evidence, any genuine ground, then he can definitely complain, but talking in the air without evidence, on questions which have already been answered, It is not right to lift it again and again.
It is not good for democracy to say that EVM is right in Jharkhand and wrong in Maharashtra. Because when people have doubts about the election process, the situation becomes like that of our neighbor Pakistan. (Rajat Sharma)
Watch: ‘Aaj Ki Baat, Rajat Sharma Sath’ full episode of November 27, 2024
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