MUMBAI: In a blow to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the Election Commission on Tuesday rejected the opposition alliance’s claims of VVPAT counting and votes polled in Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections. The commission clarified that paper slips from 1,445 VVPAT units were counted across all 288 assembly segments on November 23, with no discrepancies found between the VVPAT slips and the corresponding EVM numbers.
According to the Supreme Court rules and the Election Commission, it is mandatory to count the VVPAT slips of five randomly selected polling stations per assembly constituency and to match them against the numbers in EVMs.
The Chief Election Officer of Maharashtra issued a statement saying all five VVPAT slips at each assembly segment were to be counted to match them with the numbers in the EVM. In all the 288 assembly segments, a total number of 1445 VVPAT slips were counted on the same day of counting (November 23).
“As per that, slip count of 1440 VVPAT units from 288 Assembly constituencies of Maharashtra state has been tallied with respective Control Unit Data. There is no discrepancy found between VVPAT slip count and EVM Control unit count as per the reports received from the concerned District Election Officials (DEO). Due procedure laid by ECI has been followed,” said the CEO.
Following the crushing defeat in the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha polls, the MVA alliance parties had raised questions about the legitimacy of EVMs. On December 3, a Congress delegation met with the Election Commission in New Delhi and raised concerns over alleged inconsistencies in the electoral process for the polls, including the issue of large numbers of deletions and additions in the voters’ list.
