Chief Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi seeks urgent funds for Voter Verified Paper Trail

NEW DELHI: Amid increasing political noises questioning the credibility of EVMs and the repeated demand to man each EVM with Voter Verified Paper Trail ( VVPAT), Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Naseem Zaidi has once again written to the law minister seeking ‘urgent’ release of funds to procure adequate VVPATs ahead of the 2019 general elections.

“It is felt that the process of procurement of VVPATs cannot be delayed any longer given the prevailing environment. Hence I request you to ensure urgent release of sanction orders for timely production of VVPATs as desired by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India,” the CEC has written in a communication dated March, 22, 2017 to the law minister.

The CEC’s urgent reminder to the Centre has come at a time when it has decided to even throw an open challenge to naysayers to prove tampering of EVMs. After the assembly elections to five states concluded in March, several political parties and their leaders including Mayawati, Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav and some from the Congress have raised questions about the EVMs