The opposition parties and the Rahul Gandhi led Congress, in particular, have been fear-mongering regarding Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) regularly. Interestingly, the Congress believes that wherever they lose the EVMs have been tampered with and when they win, like Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the EVMs worked perfectly. The fear-mongering suffered a huge blow today when the Supreme Court (SC) refused the opposition party’s plea to order 50% VVPAT verification of voting.
The Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the review petition filed by 21 opposition parties combined for the review of its decision in case of verification of voting by VVPAT. The opposition parties wanted 50% VVPAT verification in these Lok Sabha Elections.
CJI Gogoi said they were not inclined to review their decision while dismissing the plea by opposition parties.
On 8th April 2019, the Supreme Court had partially allowed the petition by directing the Election Commission to increase the number of polling booths from 1 to 5 per Assembly segment for the matching of votes cast on EVMs to VVPAT slips.
Congress leader AM Singhvi had said that they would “settle” for 33% VVPAT verification instead of the 50% originally demanded as increasing polling booths per assembly segment from 1 to 5 for matching of votes doesn’t seem “reasonable”. The proceedings lasted for less than a minute, according to reports, according to a report by LiveLaw.
However, according to the Times of India, Singhvi had even agreed to “settle” for 25% verification. The court summarily rejected the petition.
#BREAKING | Senior advocate A M Singhvi pleads SC that VVPAT slips counting should be done on at least 25 percent of EVMs for the general election but court refuses to pass order and dismisses the plea pic.twitter.com/kIYwKsIa4D
— Times of India (@timesofindia) May 7, 2019
The petitioners were : N Chandrababu Naidu (TDP), Sharad Pawar (NCP), K C Venugopal (INC), Derek O Brien (TMC) ,Sharad Yadav (LTJD), Akhilesh Yadav (SP), Satish Chandra Mishra (BSP),M K Stalin (DMK) ,T K Ranga Rajan (CPI(M)) ,S Sudhakar Reddy (CPI), Manoj Kumar Jha (RJD), Arvind Kejriwal (AAP), Farookh Abdullah (NC), K Danish Ali (RJD),Ajith Singh (RLD), M Badrudding Ajmal (AIUDF), Jithin Ram Manji (Hindusthani Awam Morcha) Ashok Kumar Singh (JVM), Khorrum Anis Omar (IUML), Prof.Kodanadram (Telengana Jana Samithi) and K G Kenye (Naga Peoples Front).
