UPA Govt. deliberately delaying printers with EVMs - Swamy.
This nation is governed by the Rule of Law. We cannot have one system above the law and another below the law :)--
SC has declared transparency a constitutional principle. This principle led German SC to ban the use of voting machines in Germany.
EC should revert to paper ballot, as was done during Telangana bypolls. India was the country in the worldd which introduced ballots as per Uttaramerur inscription of 12th century. Let not this democratic tradition of the nation be sullied with tamperable gimmickry calling it efficiency. Efficiency is NOT a constitutional principle, said the German SC.
Let not the SoniaG UPA Government play with the most sacred democratic process of elections, citing bureaucratic excuses to shake up the confidence of the voters in their faith in Election Commission as Constitutional Institution of the nation which has been doing a stellar job. EC should tell the Govt. that if the VVPAT is delayed, EC will be forced to revert to paper ballot.
Kalyanaraman
UPA GOVT DELIBERATELY DELAYING INTRODUCTION OF VVPAT: SWAMY
Friday, 15 November 2013 | Kumar Chellappan | Chennai
The Union Government is deliberately delaying the introduction of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in elections to ensure transparency of the Electronic VotingMachines, says Subramanian Swamy, senior BJP leader. The Supreme Court, in its ruling last month had given directions to the Union Government and Election Commission of India to use VVPAT facility in electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the coming elections. The Supreme Court has also ruled that transparency is a constitutional mandate.
“I can feel the Government deliberately delaying the introduction of VVPAT system for reasons best known to it,” Swamy, who held a relentless legal battle seeking the introduction of the VVPAT told The Pioneer. He said there is no sign of the Government providing budgetary allocation to the ECI. “The Election Commission too has not taken any step to order the EVMs incorporated with VVPAT,” said Swamy.
Swamy, a former Union Minister for Law and Justice, said he may be approaching the apex court with the plea to issue directives to both the Government and the ECI to speed up the process of deploying VVPAT-enabled EVMs in the next Lok Sabha elections.
The EVMs had been a bone of contention between the ECI and the Opposition parties since it was deployed all over the country. There were allegations that the EVMs could be manipulated to tamper with the final results.
“The Supreme Court in its order itself has made it clear that the paper trail is an indispensable requirement for free and fair election. The court has also said that the confidence of voters could be achieved only with the introduction of paper trail whereby the voter gets a printed receipt featuring the name and symbol of the candidate for whom he /she votes,” said S Kalyanaraman, former Asian Development Bank executive who along with Dr Swamy campaigned against the present day EVMs.
N Gopalaswamy, former Chief Election Commissioner, said it was doubtful whether the commission could introduce VVPAT enabled EVMS by May 2014. According to a senior ECI official, 1.1 million EVMs were deployed in 8,34,000 polling stations spread across the country. Since the number of polling stations will see an increase of 20 per cent for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, ECI may have to mobilise nearly 1.5 million VVPAT enabled EVMs. Experts point out that it is humanly impossible to introduce VVPAT enabled EVMs in such a short notice in all the polling stations.
“There should not be a situation whereby only voters in some constituencies get the VVPAT system while the others have to content with the ordinary EVMs. If the ECI cannot provide EVMs with VVPAT facility, it should revert to traditional ballot paper system,” said Kalyanaraman.