A day before the all-party meeting convened by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Remote Voting Machines (RVMs), at least 16 political parties from the Opposition bloc led by the Congress on Sunday opposed the proposal to introduce them.
The Congress on Sunday held a meeting of the Opposition parties including the Janata Dal(U), Shiv Sena, National Conference, CPI-M, JMM, RJD, PDP, VCK, and RUML.
The NCP and SP did not turn up for the meeting, however, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh claimed both parties have conveyed a similar stand. Independent MP Kapil Sibal also joined the meeting.
“While unanimously opposing the proposal of Remote Voting Machine the parties mentioned that the proposal by the ECI is not concrete. There are huge political anomalies and problems in the proposal. The definition of migrant labour and the number of migrant labourers are all not very clear. We have unanimously made up our minds to oppose the proposal of RVM,” said Singh briefing the media after the meeting.
Singh said, “We are extremely grateful to all the political parties who have responded to our requests to meet and discuss the proposal of the ECI on the remote voting machine”.
“We have been asked to give our reply by January 31, so we have decided to meet again on January 25 to send our reply jointly or separately but our clear mandate and view is that we don’t support RVM,” he added.
On the TMC’s absence, Singh said we are not yet aware of the stand of the party but will discuss and update about their view.
On SP and NCP’s absence, Singh said Akhilesh Yadav and Sharad Pawar have backed their views but they still want to get full clarity on the RVM.
CPI leader D Raja said all the parties who attended the meeting will raise the issue with the Election commission on Monday,
ECI has called the meeting to demonstrate the concept of Remote EVMs for migrant voters to the representatives of political parties.