Massive win for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh elections has planted doubts in the mind of JMM as well. The party expressing disbelief over the fairness of the EVMs used in there has sought from the Election Commission to return to old ballot paper system for April 9 littipara bypoll.
The party held a protest in front of State Chief Electoral Officer office on Tuesday and handed over a memorandum to the Election Commission through it. “We fear that the EVMs used in the UP elections would be brought here for littipara in order to transcript a BJP win in the bypoll. Earlier, we had doubts over EVMs without having VVPATs but the incident happened at Bhind of Madhya Pradesh has even shaken our faith on the VVPAT enabled EVMs as well,” said JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya.
The Commission has gone ahead allocating all the 272 polling booths of the Assembly constituency with the VVPAT fitted machines that can print a paper trail of the votes cast. A demonstration from the Pakur district administration and local people has also been conducted to clear any doubts. But this could not satisfy the party.
“We cannot trust this. Apprehensions are rife that all the 272 VVPAT enabled EVMs to be used at littipara may be tampered with and synchronised to favour the BJP. The party has earlier also and is again demanding that the Election Commission should use the ballot system in order to ensure free and fair election,” party legislator Kunal Sarangi who along with other senior JMM leaders took part in the protest.
The party in its appeal also reiterated to stop Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s April 6 visit of Sahibganj and objected to the schemes to be rolled out over there. It also went on alleging violations of the model code of conduct by Chief Minister Raghubar Das. “We have demanded that the PM’s visit be deferred till April 14,” added Bhattacharya.