Sanjay Jha, the National Spokesperson of the Indian National Congress (INC,) on the 6th of June, took to Twitter and raised a question about democracy in elections.
Mr. Jha was angry with the Election Commission of India (ECI) for not considering the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips while counting votes in the Lok Sabha elections. He asked all the opposition parties of India to boycott the upcoming 2020 Assembly elections in their respective states, and see the move of the ECI.
There is only one way forward: all opposition parties must collectively boycott the forthcoming state elections till it is done 100 % on ballot-papers. What will the #ElectionCommission do? Award all seats to the BJP?
It is time to up the ante. This is about our democracy. #EVM
— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) June 6, 2019
According to the opposition parties, in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the malfunctioned Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) played a vital role in a landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP.)
The BJP won a total of 300 Lok Sabha seats and formed the next Government of India (GoI,) whereas, the Indian National Congress managed to win only 53 seats.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP,) the Trinamool Congress (TMC,) the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)] and many other regional parties filed a petition in the Supreme Court (SC) against the ECI.
The parties claimed the ECI was a puppet of the BJP and was unfair in the Lok Sabha elections. They also asked the SC to order the ECI to conduct counting of votes through EVMs ( 50 % ) and VVPAT (50%.)
However, the request was in vain, as the SC dismissed the plea and left the decision with the ECI, which is an independent organisation.
When asked about the BJP’s stand on this, the Party denied the allegations and called it a strategy against the BJP.
Sanjay Jha suggested boycotting the forthcoming state elections until the ECI agrees
to 100 % VVPAT counting of votes.
Stay tuned for further updates.
