EVM malfunctioning row: EC's behaviour is incomprehensible, says Kapil Sibal

A united opposition led by Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday held a meeting to discuss the issue of EVM malfunctioning and said that they will approach the Supreme Court again to demand that at least 50% of paper trails be verified with EVMs.

New Delhi:With the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls marred by numerous reports of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) malfunctioning, a united Opposition led by Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday met the Election Commission (EC) to discuss the issue and and decided to approach the Supreme Court again to demand that at least 50% of paper trails be verified with EVMs.

Citing several reports of EVM malfunctioning and malpractice at polling booths, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal, one of the opposition leaders who accompanied Naidu said, "In polling booths of Andhra Pradesh voting continued till four in the morning, if everything was fine with EVM's then why did the people had to wait for so long? In Telangana, people used prosthetic fingers to cast their votes multiple times. What was the Election Comminssion doing? Its behaviour is incomprehensible."

Naidu, who has been very vocal on the issue, met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Saturday to raise the issue of EVM malfunctioning and said, "Nearly, 21 political parties have demanded verification of VVPAT paper trails of 50% of the EVMs."

The party leaders including Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi also said that they would raise the issue with the Supreme Court.

Referring to the Election Commission's claim that the verification of 50 per cent of VVPAT slips, as demanded by the opposition, would delay the declaration of election results by five and half days, Sibal said, "We agree that if we count 50% of the VVPAT's, the results would get delayed by a few days, but atleast the voters will be at peace as it would make things transparent."

"A voters vote is like a sword in their hands and they get only one chance in five years to put that sword in use. Election Commission should understand the severity of the situation and lend their support to the voters," added Sibal.

The 21 opposition leaders had earlier approached the top court which directed on April 8 that the VVPAT count be increased to five from one EVM per assembly constituency.