BJP responds to claims of vote-tampering across Maha

MUMBAI: Across the state, losing candidates have claimed that electronic voting machines (EVM) were rigged before the civic polls, prompting the Bharatiya Janata Party that won most of the votes, to rubbish the idea and ask the losing parties to accept defeat gracefully.

At Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Amravati, candidates have alleged the machines were manipulated to suit the ruling parties.

They have demanded that the Election Commission switch back to the ballot paper system as they suspect the EVMS had been tampered with.

In Amravati, all the major political parties announced a bandh on Tuesday, and said they will stage protests across the state.

BJP legislator Parag Alvani, however, called the protests ‘disrespectful of the voters’ verdict’. “Our opponents are in a state of shock owing to our overwhelming win. There is a procedure in which the EVMS are sealed in front of the candidates or their representatives. They should have complained at the time if they detected some problem. They are now complaining after losing,” said Alvani.

But complaints continued. In one case, the candidate said he got no votes, even though his family had voted for him. Shrikant Shirsat, who contested the BMC elections from ward 164 in Sakinaka as an independent, said. “This clearly indicates that the EVM machines were tampered with, as my family voted for me. I voted for myself. But the machines still shows I got zero votes,” he said.

In Pune, social entrepreneur Ravi Ghate has now started a helpline to register complaints about EVMS. At Colaba, former Congress corporator Vinod Shekhar was shocked as his wife Sushma came third in ward 226, despite being a sitting corporator. Vinod had in 2012 too lodged a case challenging his defeat in the BMC polls and alleged that rigged EVMS was the cause. The case is pending in court. “The BJP is a master manipulator. There was no way we could have been defeated in a Congress stronghold,” he said.