MVA gears up for a fight against EVMs

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) parties that lost the Maharashtra assembly polls by a huge margin are planning to launch a "legal and a people's movement" against the use of electronic voting machines that they allege could have been tampered with during this month's election. Legal experts are being consulted on how the election results could be challenged, people in the know said on the condition of anonymity. This comes after the leadership of the UBT Sena as well as Sharad Pawar's NCP held separate meetings with their candidates who were defeated. Most of the candidates apparently expressed surprise at their loss.

In the meeting with his candidates, Uddhav Thackeray asked the losing candidates to check the VVPAT machines. "Under the rules, 5% of VVPAT machines can be checked with the EVMs and hence all the candidates would now be seeking for the VVPAT votes to see if they tally with the EVM machines," said a UBT leader after the meeting. He referred to a Supreme Court ruling this year which allowed candidates to request for checking micro controllers or the burnt memory of the EVMs within seven days of the results. Thackeray has asked all his candidates who lost to file applications with the Election Commission within seven days. There has been coordination with the NCP-SP as well as Congress as similar instructions have gone to all the defeated candidates.

Pawar Sr also asked the candidates to bring forward all the complaints of "irregularities" so that a legal challenge can be mounted. According to NCP Sharadchandra Pawar sources, a team of lawyers has been brought in to look into complaints about EVMs.