Opposition parties to discuss EVMs during electoral reforms debate in Rajya Sabha

This is the first time in the ongoing session that parties in the Opposition have joined hands to raise an issue in the Upper House.

Polling officials collect EVMs and other material in Jaipur | PTI

New Delhi: Opposition parties will put up a united front in the Rajya Sabha Wednesday, during a discussion on electoral reforms, to corner the Narendra Modi government on reliability and authenticity of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).

A total of 14 parties including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party are coming together, ThePrint has learnt.

This is the first time in the ongoing session that the Opposition parties have joined hands to raise an issue in the Upper House. Till now, there has been little floor coordination among the parties.

A notice was initially given by TMC and 10 other parties to hold discussion on electoral reforms in the Rajya Sabha. While TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien will initiate the discussion, other opposition leaders participating in it are Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Satish Chandra Mishra of the BSP, SP’s Ram Gopal Yadav and D Raja of the CPI.

Derek O’Brien said discussions would not be limited to Modi’s ‘one nation, one election’ idea.

“There is more to electoral reforms than just this idea. We will discuss other issues such as tampering of EVMs, paper ballots, electoral bonds, etc”, said the TMC leader.

Addressing an all-party meeting before the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha, Modi had invited presidents of all opposition parties to discuss his ‘one nation, one election’ proposal. He also set up a committee to give suggestions on the idea.

EVMs and VVPAT tally

Opposition parties have been raking up the issue of EVM tampering for a while now. In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, several parties had made EVM tampering their main poll issue.

Representatives of over 20 parties had earlier requested the Election Commission (EC) to ensure mandatory authentication of EVM results with voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) at 50 per cent of the polling booths in each constituency, for all state and Lok Sabha elections.

The EC had made tallying of VVPAT slips with EVM results mandatory in 5 per cent of the polling booths in each Assembly constituency for all state and Lok Sabha elections.