Congress Wants Paper Ballots To Come Back
Congress wants the Election Commission to bring back paper ballot.
The Indian National Congress today called for reverting to the old practice of paper ballot instead of electronic voting machines as adopted by other major democracies to help restore the credibility of the electoral process.
In its draft political resolution moved at the party’s 84th Plenary Session, the Congress siad that a paper ballot mechanism was necessary as there was “misuse” of EVMs to “manipulate the outcome contrary to popular verdict”. It added that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s move of simultaneous elections is “misplaced” and “incompatible with the Constitution”.
The EC has the constitutional mandate to ensure free and fair elections. Both the voting and counting process must remain transparent to retain people’s faith in the integrity of the electoral system.Congress’ Political Resolution
It is commonplace in Indian elections for the losing candidate to allege that the electronic voting machines were rigged to skew the results. However, the Election commission has on numerous occasions said that there is no merit in the allegations of EVM tampering.
To tackle this, the EC has also introduced the voter verifiable paper audit trail. The VVPAT machine prints a piece of paper showing who the vote has been casted for after a voter presses the respective button on the EVM. While India still sticks to electronic voting, a number of European countries including Netherlands and Germany have dumped it. Most states in the U.S. also use a paper ballot system.
Congress’ resolution also criticised BJP’s proposal for conducting simultaneous elections. “It will have serious implications, which must be thoroughly enquired into, and a national consensus built,” the resolution said.
The opposition party also adopted a “pragmatic approach” for cooperation with all like-minded parties and evolve a common workable programme for defeating the BJP in the 2019 general election.
With inputs from PTI