Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 28: Demanding cancellation of recently held Assembly elections, J&K National Panthers Party has urged upon the Election Commission of India to hold re-elections in the State.
In a special session of all the 65 party candidates held today under the leadership of chief Patron, Prof Bhim Singh (Ex-MLC), chairman Harshdev Singh (Ex-MLA) and State president Balwant Singh Mankotia (Ex-MLA), a resolution was moved seeking re-elections in the State.
Prof Bhim Singh moved the resolution which was seconded by Masood Andrabi, State vice-president NPP, Yashpal Kundal, president Young Panthers and others. The members sought cancellation of Nov-Dec 2014 Assembly polls in J&K to save democracy. They alleged that there is not an iota of doubt that the Assembly polls were rigged and manipulated by preprogramming the EVMs.
That EVMs have been discarded by many democratic countries in the world as not reliable. The countries like Germany, Netherland and most States in the US have discarded the system as a potential danger of vote fraud and more importantly, lack of transparency and verifiability. The countries like UK, France, Japan, Singapore have stuck to voting on paper ballot. India initiated use of EVMs in the election which is unconstitutional because it fringes upon the fundamental rights of the citizens and their right to vote.
The Supreme Court of India in its judgment on October 8, 2013 has held that, “We are satisfied that the ‘paper trail’ is an indispensable requirement of free and fair elections. The confidence of the voters in the EVMs can be achieved only with the introduction of the ‘paper trail’.
They alleged that this election in J&K was held in total violation of the judgment of the Supreme Court of India as the Vote Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) has not been applied by Election Commission of India only to help the Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to manipulate the general elections held in 2014.
The democracy in India is under threat because of the misuse/manipulation of EVMs in the country. 82% polling in the mountains and 60% polling in the plains in the cities cannot be justified. The victory of BJP candidates in thousands shows the clear manipulation by increasing the margin to discourage the candidates set up by the Panthers Party and other opposition parties, they added.
That the present case deserves attention of the democratic forces and the civil society as well as the media that the 15000 EVMs deployed in about 10000 polling stations in J&K were purchased by Election Commission of India from public sector companies say, ‘Bharat Electronics Limited & Electronics Corporation of India Limited’, mostly from Hyderabad. These machines were moved to Ahmedabad in Gujarat for reprocessing and reprogramming, they alleged.
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