NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday claimed that, in a mandatory count, there was no mismatch found in the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trial (VVPAT) slips and the votes polled in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the recently concluded Maharashtra assembly elections.
The commission said as per the guidelines it is required to count VVPAT slips of randomly selected five polling stations across each assembly segment of a state.
The poll body, accordingly, counted the slips on November 23 (during the result day) in the presence of the counting observer and representatives of candidates.
“As per that, slip count of 1440 VVPAT units from 288 assembly constituencies of Maharashtra state has been tallied with respective control unit data. There is no discrepancy found between VVPAT slip count and EVM control unit count as per the reports received from the concerned DEOs. Due procedure laid by ECI has been followed,” the ECI said in a statement.
The ECI statement comes days after opposition parties in Maharashtra boycotted the oath-taking ceremony during the first day of the assembly’s special session.
The boycott was led by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, which included prominent opposition parties like Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP led by Sharad Pawar.
The leaders of these parties, including Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, voiced their concerns regarding the fairness of the recent elections. Thackeray accused the Election Commission of allowing “misuse of EVMs” during the state assembly elections.
The issue of EVMs authenticity had blown up after the Maharsthra polls as over 20 candidates from opposition parties who lost the assembly elections raised serious concerns about the integrity of EVMs.
These candidates had alleged significant discrepancies between the votes polled and the results declared, particularly in constituencies where opposition had expected strong performance.