There are 64 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of various states and one in Lok Sabha.
People's mandate is sacrosanct and has to be above any iota of reasonable doubt, Pranab said.
Pakistan's Election Commission on Friday disqualified former prime minister Imran Khan for five years in the Toshakhana case for hiding proceeds from the sale of gifts he received from foreign leaders.
Electronic Voting Machines have become 'Electronic Victory Machines' for the Congress in the elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged on Thursday, as it trailed in the Maharashtra and Haryana polls. "The EVMs have become 'Electronic Victory Machines' for the Congress in the elections," rued BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. Naqvi said these elections were conducted with EVMs despite many political parties expressing their concerns.
The Mumbai police on Wednesday arrested Maharashtra Navnirman Sena candidate from Ghatkopar (west) Ram Kadam for allegedly assaulting policemen and election officials during polling. The police also cane-charged MNS activists who protested against Kadam's arrest. Hundreds of activists gathered when police reached Kadam's residence to arrest him on Wednesday, Vatkar said, adding that the crowd broke the windowpanes of police vans.
Four persons, including two rag-pickers, were arrested in connection with theft of six Electronic Voting Machines in Vijayawada, which were recovered, police said on Monday.
Nandan Nilekani introduces extracts from his book, Imagining India, exclusive to rediff.com
The Commission has decided to refer to the Technical Expert Committee for detailed examination of 'voter verifiable paper trail' in EVMs in all its aspects through a process of wide consultation, the EC said in a press note on Friday.
Twelve constituencies in the Telangana belt of Andhra Pradesh will go to polls on Tuesday.
The opposition parties might be raising questions over electronic voting machines of India, but the Electronic Voting machiness and credible electoral system have impressed the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Against the backdrop of some opposition parties raising doubts about the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMS), the Election Commission on Friday said no party has been able to prove that the machine could be tampered with.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday asked the Election Commission to convene an all-party meeting to allay their apprehensions about the reliability of electronic voting machines.
Political parties on Monday said that the Election Commission should take steps to enhance the confidence of people on use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in polls in view of apprehensions that they could be tampered with.
The plea was filed by several opposition leaders seeking counting of voter verifiable paper audit trail slips of 50 per cent of electronic voting machines in each constituency before the Lok Sabha results are declared.
A Pune-based engineer and activist has been arrested by the city police in connection with a Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) theft case. Mukund Lagoo, a civil engineer and a human rights activist was arrested on Tuesday after two days of questioning.
The main opposition Telugu Desam party has stepped up its opposition to the use of Electronic Voting Machines saying they were vulnerable to the manipulation and the people did not have confidence in the machines after the non governmental organizations exposed their unreliability.
The man who showed that Electronic Voting Machines could be tampered with will be in police custody for another two days in the EVM theft case even as a demand was made in Parliament for an all-party meeting to discuss in depth their "vulnerability" in elections.
The arrest of Hariprasad has come as a major set back for all those activists who are on a mission to prove that the Electronic Voting Machine can be tampered with. Hari Prasad, the technical coordinator of VeTA (Citizens for Verifiability, Transparency and Accountability in Elections), was arrested from Hyderabad on Saturday in connection with the theft of an EVM from Mumbai.
Allaying all doubts on the possibility of Electronic Voting Machine tampering, Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla on Tuesday said the machines used in India are stand-alone machines and cannot be manipulated.
The chief minister has lost her cool twice in the last few weeks over people chanting 'Jai Sri Ram' at some places in the state while her motorcade was passing through.
So, 11 years after the country switched to EVMs, voters in the 12 Telangana constituencies will once again be depending on paper ballots, ballot boxes and manual counting of votes in the July 27 bye-elections.
Alex Halderman and Rop Gonggrijp, two of the three scientists who had exposed the flaws in the Election Commission's EVMs, flew in to New Delhi around 2 am on Monday and were detained immediately. After a harrowing wait for hours, the duo was let off in the evening.
Security measures have been heightened in view of the violence in the previous phases, particularly the death of five people in Cooch Behar in the fourth phase of polling on April 10, an Election Commission official said.
The state police in poll-bound Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh will be kept away from guarding the strong rooms where the Electronic Voting Machines will be stored after polling.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to inform it whether a system incorporating ballot papers with Electronic Voting Machines was possible to implement during elections.Acting on a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, a division bench of Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice Manmohan directed the EC's counsel to file an affidavit in this regard by October 21.
District Collector Alok Ranjan Ghosh said that the Sector Officer Awadesh Singh's driver had expressed his desire to vote. According to a primary reply by the officer, he had taken the EVM machine and VVPAT into a private hotel. A formal reply by the Sector Officer is awaited.
Following defeat in the recent elections in six municipal corporations in the state, the Gujarat Congress on Thursday alleged that the Electronic Voting Machines used during the polls were tampered with, and claimed that it was the "machine magic" that did the trick for Bharatiya Janata Party.
In the backdrop of allegations by certain political parties that the Electronic Voting Machines could be hacked, the Election Commission on Thursday said EVMs were and are tamper proof.
The nodal officer for EVMs in Varanasi, a returning officer (RO) in Sonbhadra district and an additional election officer in Bareilly district have been pulled out from election duties, a day ahead of the counting of votes in UP.
Election Commission on Saturday invited petitioners before various courts as also political parties to prove if the Electronic Voting Machines can be tampered.
Nearly 68 per cent of the 3.62 crore-strong electorate today turned out to vote in Rajasthan Assembly election that witnessed stray incidents of caste violence and malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a Public Interest Litigation, questioning the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines and seeking a direction to the Election Commission to withhold using them till the machines are made tamper proof.
Rediff.com has highlighted many stories about the controversy surrounding the EVMs and the growing opposition to their usage. In a letter to rediff.com, a representative of Election commissioner Dr S Y Quraishi's office has clarified the EC's position over the matter, which is threatening to blow up into a major issue of national concern.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Nitin Gadkari on Friday said his party was not against Electronic Voting Machines or the use of technology in elections, but wanted paper back-up, as it had not been proved conclusively that EVMs were tamper-proof. Gadkari insisted that reservations about EVMs were not confined to the BJP alone and many other political parties, including the Orissa unit of the Congress, were wary of its use."The system should be modernised," Gadkari said.
A day after Election Commission rejected his claim that Electronic Voting Machines are not tamper-proof, former bureaucrat Omesh Saigal on Tuesday stuck to his charge that a particular software can be used to rig the polls.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Sunday found support from rivals Communist party of India - Marxist, Janata Dal - Secular and Lok Janshakti Party for his suggestion for the re-introduction of ballot papers in place of Electronic Voting Machines.Advani has not cast any doubts on the results of the Lok Sabha elections but feels the country should revert to ballot papers, starting with the Maharashtra assembly elections in October and some more states later.
The Delhi CM said that the people of India won't forgive the Election Commission and the BJP for manipulating the Constitution.
Former Union law and commerce minister Subramaniam Swamy has written a letter to the Election Commission, demanding a paper trail to 'substantiate and verify the election results' obtained from Electronic Voting Machines.In his letter, Swamy has argued that it is possible to manipulate the EVMs, by planting a software programme that could produce an election result in favour of a particular candidate.
With Lok Sabha polls next year and assembly elections round the corner in some key states, the government cleared a proposal on Thursday to procure 1.80 lakh Electronic Voting Machines.
According to the EC, no mismatch has been reported since the practice of cross-checking votes was introduced.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances