EC orders Mizoram poll dept to use VVPAT in 10 constituencies

AIZAWL: The Election Commission has instructed the Mizoram election department to use Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail System ( VVPAT) system in 10 Assembly constituencies in the coming elections to the 40-member state legislature to be held on November 25.

The instruction was issued yesterday to introduce VVPAT with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and would be used in 10 seats out of the 11 seats within Aizawl city, state Joint Chief Electoral Officer H Lalengmawia said here today.

"The constituencies where the VVPAT system would be introduced would be decided by the state election department," he said, adding that being a new equipment, the Election Commission wanted the VVPAT with EVMs to be introduced in the urban area where it would be easier to be monitored.

Earlier, the opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) had expressed doubts about the reliability of the EVMs and suggested to the Election Commission that the EVMs might have been manipulated in the 2008 Assembly polls which resulted in the unprecedented victory for the Congress which bagged 32 seats.

The major opposition parties - the MNF, the Mizoram People's Conference (MPC), the Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP) and the BJP state unit recently submitted a joint memorandum to the Election Commission seeking introduction of the VVPAT with EVMs.

The parties expressed the desire that the voters would be able to exercise franchise without having doubts and with transparency.