Urban Mirror Correspondent
New Delhi, November 23: The Lok Gathbandhan Party (LGP) today welcomed the verdict of Supreme Court rejecting the PIL opposing the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and reintroduction of ballot paper voting system in elections in the country. The LGP said PIL moved by an NGO and supported by Congress and other 17 political parties was illogical and self-defeating.
The spokesman of LGP said here on Friday that EVMs fitted with Voters Verified Audit Trail Machines (VVPATs) and the latest M3 model system appears to have vastly improved the electoral system. However the spokesman said the election commission should look into the functional problems of these machines which were witnessed during polling in the past.
The spokesman that instead of setting up people-oriented developmental agenda for the elections these parties, including Congress, Samajwadi Party, BSP and others have been irrelevantly making demand for going back to old ballot paper system which was largely marred by fraud and booth capturing. The spokesman said that these parties have been misleading the people by false assertion that EVMs could be hacked by Bluetooth or Wi-fi.
The spokesman said the LGP believed that these machines are still the best bet for efficiently holding the elections. The spokesman said the Election Commission should however ensure the proper functioning of these machines to keep the voting process credible and transparent. The spokesman said since adverse perception among the people is being created over the honest and transparent functioning of these machines the onus lies on the election commission to make the process even more robust and transparent to restore the confidence of the common man in the system.
The spokesman said even though problem of malfunctioning required to be set right urgently the EVM model cannot be termed as flawed. These machines have saved the election process from decades of looting and stashing of ballot papers into ballot boxes at the polling stations by hooligans and other anti-social elements. The spokesman said the commission’s electoral efficiency should not come at the cost of credibility.
