BJP for use of EVMs in local body polls

Patiala: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has questioned the use of paper ballots in the recently held zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections in Punjab and sought adoption of electronic voting machines (EVMs) for future local body polls after a high rate of vote rejection and delays in result tabulation.BJP state spokesperson Pritpal Singh Baliawal shared on social media platform X that nearly 3.75% of votes were rejected in Patiala and Sangrur districts. He said out of 8,87,600 registered voters in the Patiala zila parishad elections, 4,09,822 ballots were polled and 15,386 votes were declared invalid.
In Patiala district's panchayat samitis, 14,757 votes or 3.85% of the 3,83,279 votes cast were rejected, while Sangrur saw around 13,000 invalid ballots from nearly 3.5 lakh votes polled.Baliawal claimed that only about 40% of results were announced in 33 hours due to the slow pace of paper ballot counting and alleged that hundreds of thousands of votes were rejected across the state.In a press statement, he noted that the Indian National Congress had accused the Aam Aadmi Party of rigging these paper ballot-based elections. He said the EVMs had consistently proven to be a more reliable system for ensuring free and fair elections and announced that the BJP would formally request the State Election Commission to adopt the EVMs for future local body polls.Officials, however, said no political party had lodged a formal complaint alleging coercion or manipulation in the rejection of votes. They attributed most invalid ballots to incorrect folding of paper ballots or voters handling ballots with ink-stained fingers and underlined the need for enhanced voter awareness and training.An official in the State Election Commission refrained from commenting on the vote rejection figures but stated that both paper ballots and EVMs were effective electoral tools.The official observed that except for the last few years, elections in the state had traditionally been conducted using paper ballots and EVMs had also faced criticism. The official also emphasised that elections in Punjab had largely remained free and fair, irrespective of the voting method used.MSID:: 126095336 413 |

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