Maharashtra polls: EC says counting of VVPAT slips only on court orders | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: After directions from their leaders, candidates of the opposition alliance Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) have filed applications with the Election Commission (EC) for the recounting of 5% of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and also paid the fees for this. However, the EC has informed them that there will be no recounting of VVPATs, only a demonstration to verify the functioning of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The Shiv Sena (UBT) is now planning to challenge this in the Supreme Court.

Early this week, the party’s chief Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with candidates who lost the assembly elections. After several candidates said that they suspected EVM manipulation, Thackeray asked them to file applications for counting of 5% of the VVPATs, as permitted by EC rules. Congress and NCP (SP) candidates were also asked to file these applications.

Accordingly, many Sena (UBT) candidates such as Sudhakar Badgujar (Nashik west), Kedar Dighe (Kopri-Pachpakhadi), Dipesh Mhatre (Dombivli), Rajan Vichare (Thane city), M K Madhavi (Airoli) and Vinod Ghosalkar (Dahisar) filed applications with the district election officers. While Dighe paid ₹47,200 for the verification of one machine, Dipesh Mhatre deposited ₹4,72,000 for the verification of 10 machines. Vinod Ghosalkar applied for the verification of six machines. Interestingly, some candidates like former MLA Vaibhav Naik (Kudal) did not submit any applications and also refused to share the reason.

The EC officials, however, informed the applicants they would just give a demonstration of the functioning of the EVMs. “The officials gave me a letter, stating that they would clear the data on the machine and allow us to check if the machine was working properly through a mock poll,” said Badgujar.

When asked about this, officials from the office of the state’s Chief Electoral Officer said there was a misunderstanding regarding the Counting and Verification (C & V) process. “In this process, only checking and verification of the functioning of the control unit, ballot unit and VVPAT is allowed,” said an official. “This will be done through the process of the demo poll, which will be held in the presence of the candidate or the representative authorised by him. Through this demo poll, one can verify whether the control unit, ballot unit and VVPAT are working properly or not.”

The official said that candidates could challenge the counting process only during the process of counting votes and before the declaration of the final result. “But once the final result is declared, they will have to approach the high court for the counting of the VVPAT slips,” he said. “We will follow the court order.” The process of verification will be done in the presence of experts from Bharat Electronics Ltd, which manufactures the machines.

Shiv Sena leader and spokesperson Vinayak Raut said that so far 20 to 30 candidates had submitted applications for verification. He also alleged that the EC has not followed the order of the Supreme Court while framing the procedure, and said that his party was planning to file a petition in the Supreme Court on this.

“The Supreme Court order is to verify 5% of VVPAT slips,” he said. “Based on this, we expect the actual counting of paper slips collected in the VVPAT machine. The district administration’s statement that it will verify the machines by conducting a mock poll is against the spirit of the SC order and also contempt of court. So we are planning to file a petition in the SC to challenge this.”

Raut added that the Sena (UBT) was collecting data on the number of candidates who had applications. The EC official, when asked how many applications had been received, said the office would reveal this after seven days.

When contacted, Kiran Kulkarni, additional chief electoral officer, Maharashtra, reiterated that C & V was a different process from that of recounting. “The C & V process is prescribed by the EC to check functionality of the control unit, ballot unit and VVPAT,” he said. “Recounting is a different process, which can happen only by a court order after the result has been declared.”