Ahead of the Parliamentary elections, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner (EC) Arun Goel chaired a meeting with 10 political parties in Chennai on Friday. They also reviewed the preparedness for general elections to the Lok Sabha. Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo was also present.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting with the CEC and EC, DMK’s R.S. Bharathi said his party objected to what it called a new practice in which the vote cast on the ballot has to go to the control unit only after it crossed the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) unit. “This is illegal,” he said. If the vote cast goes directly to the control unit, it would help in transparency, he said and contended: “To say that the VVPAT would not be open for access during the counting process is creating doubts. The Election Commission itself is accepting that there is a chance for 1-2% error with this.”
Arguing that there was a “chance for tampering”, Mr. Bharathi said people would have doubts as to whether there were any “ulterior motive” behind this. He said they did not get satisfactory answers.
