Kolkata: A day after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah criticised the Congress for questioning EVMs after every electoral loss, TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, too, trashed the idea of EVM manipulation Monday.
Speaking to the media outside Parliament, Abhishek said those raising questions on EVMs should first furnish valid grounds for their concerns to the Election Commission.
“I have been conducting elections on ground for a long time. If someone works well during EVM randomisation and the booth workers check EVMs during mock polls or review the form 17C, which is used to check ballot units or control units, during counting of votes, I don’t think there is anything substantial in these allegations [of EVM manipulation],” he said, seeking proof of EVM hacking. “Only making 2-3 statements regarding a matter does not mean anything,” he added, calling it his “personal opinion”.
Abhishek’s comments mark a departure from West Bengal CM and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee’s stand on the issue. After the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, she had voiced support for a return to paper ballots to “save democracy”.
“They [BJP] got 18 seats [in Bengal] with money, muscle, government, communal and media power. They had targeted 23 seats and maybe EVMs were pre-programmed in favour of them,” Mamata alleged then. In 2019, she even vowed to launch a pan India protest, claiming 98 percent of EVMs could be distorted. TMC MPs, in the preceding session of Parliament, wore placards that read: “No EVMs, we want paper ballots”.
Last year, Mamata claimed to have received intel that BJP was likely to hack EVMs to win the 2024 general election. “They [BJP] are trying to hack EVMs. We have received such information, and have already found some evidence. We are also looking for more. This will be discussed during the next meeting of INDIA coalition members, whenever its date is finalised,” she said.
And in May, Mamata demanded the EC disclose the makers of EVM while casting aspersions on BJP. “There are apprehensions of manipulation of results by BJP as several EVMs were missing for a long period,” she said at a Lok Sabha campaign rally in Murshidabad.
Asked to comment on Congress’s charge of EVM manipulation in the aftermath of assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, National Conference (JKNC) leader Omar Abdullah said in an interview Sunday, “when you get a 100 plus Members of Parliament using the same EVMs, and you celebrate that as sort of a victory for your party, you can’t then a few months later turn around and say… we don’t like these EVMs because now the election results aren’t going the way we would like them to.”
He added, “If you have problems with the EVMs, then you should be consistent in those problems. Parties should not contest elections if they do not trust the voting mechanism.”
Since both the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and JKNC are part of the INDIA bloc, the BJP saw this public expression of a difference of opinion as ammunition to corner the opposition alliance.
BJP’s Amit Malviya reacted to Abhishek’s remarks, said, “After Omar Abdullah, if even West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, who brazenly steals election in Diamond Harbour, using police and state machinery, claims that EVMs can’t be manipulated, then the Congress and Rahul Gandhi are in serious trouble. Their isolation is complete.”
BJP MP and the party’s West Bengal unit chief Sukanta Majumdar told ThePrint that he sees it as an expose of the Opposition’s ‘double standards’. “Any logical person would say what Abhishek Banerjee has said. The EC has given an open challenge to anyone who can prove EVMs can be hacked. The public can see through lies. When you win, EVMs are fine but when you lose, you blame the same EVM, how long can you lie for,” said Majumdar.
Also Read: ‘Repeated doubts can create distrust’: What SC said as it rejected pleas for 100% EVM-VVPAT verification
