The Chief Election Officer (CEO) on December 10 rejected Opposition allegations regarding the legitimacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the Maharashtra assembly elections and said that “no mismatch” was found between the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trial (VVPAT) slips with their corresponding EVM numbers.
In a statement, the Maharashtra CEO explained that, as per the guidelines of the Election Commission of India, it is mandatory to count VVPAT slips from five randomly selected polling stations in each assembly constituency.
“VVPAT Slip count of randomly selected five polling stations per Assembly Constituency was conducted on November 23, during the counting procedure, in front of the Counting Observer / Representatives of Candidates. As per that, the slip count of 1440 VVPAT units from 288 Assembly Constituencies of Maharashtra State has been tallied with respective Control Unit data,” the Maharashtra CEO said.
“There is no discrepancy found between the VVPAT slip count and EVM Control unit count as per the reports received from the concerned DEOs,” the Maharashtra CEO added. Notably, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance partners have raised questions about the legitimacy of EVMs following their defeat in the Maharashtra assembly election 2024.
On December 3, a Congress delegation met with the Election Commission over its apprehensions concerning the voting in Maharashtra assembly polls.
Addressing the media afterwards, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged that between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Maharashtra, around 47 lakh voters’ names were added to the list.
“If elections are not conducted properly, it undermines the fundamental structure of the Constitution. Our submission was that the Election Commission should extract data and provide facts on the issues we have raised, based on which we will conclude,” he said.
“Our first issue was about the large-scale deletion of voters’ names in Maharashtra. We have stated that the prescribed forms and procedures for this process must be followed, and we need detailed data, booth-wise and constituency-wise, to understand the basis of such extensive deletions. This data is currently unavailable. It will help ascertain the grounds on which such a large number of deletions occurred,” Singhvi further said.
“Our second point was about additions to the voter list. We noted that in the nearly five months between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, around 47 lakh voters’ names were added. Where are the forms for these additions? On what basis was door-to-door verification conducted? We need that raw data,” he added. He also alleged that there are 118 constituencies where polling increased by 25,000 or more votes between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
