Besides mutual allegations, Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is one common issue which has come up in Madhya Pradesh politics whenever there is any election around and same is the case ahead of urban local body polls due in the Central Indian State in near future.
While the urban bodies elections are scheduled in next few months, the ruling Congress now wants these polls to be carried out through ballot papers.
The Opposition BJP was also quick to slam the ruling party for demanding phase out of voting machines which were used in Assembly polls when Congress returned to power.
The reason behind raising the demand is that the local body polls recently held through ballot papers in neighbouring Chhattisgarh garnered sizable success.
Meanwhile it is not the first time EVMs have cropped up as bone of contention for the BJP and Congress in Madhya Pradesh as the Congress party was extremely critical of EVMs ahead of assembly polls in 2018 and also blamed the EVMs for massive defeats of its candidates in Lok Sabha polls where the party ended up winning a lone seat out of 29 seats. Several losing candidates of the Congress party had moved the High Court pointing fingers at EVMs over possible tampering.
In this regard, a delegation of Congress party led by organisational vice president Chandra Prabhash Shekhar, had called on the State Election Commissioner BP Singh in Bhopal on Tuesday conveying a demand for forthcoming polls through paper ballots.
Later, talking to media persons, Shekhar told that though the last local body polls were held through EVMs but the experience of these machines used in assembly and parliamentary polls was not satisfactory so the Congress workers and leaders across the state are of the view that ballot papers should be used for upcoming polls.
For obvious reasons, the opposition BJP has hit back at Congress party over the demand.
“A government elected through EVMs should first resign and then should seek local body polls through paper ballots,” BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said.