Bihar Chief Electoral Officer H R Srinivasa said the Election Commission has established a three-tier security system for strong rooms (housing the electronic voting machines) and the counting centres. The inner core is being guarded by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), then there is the Bihar Military Police (BMP) and then the district police, he told reporters.
'We do not think the EC is doing enough to address issue of EVM malfunctioning'
"It is very unfortunate that a party which was formed on a promise of alternative politics, on the promise of practising transparency, accountability, internal democracy and not resorting to power politics broke all promises. It became like an ordinary conventional political party," said Bhushan.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Election Commission on a plea seeking stoppage of ward-wise counting of votes on the ground that the declaration of result of every polling booth strikes at the root of right to privacy attached to voting.
She also said that the BJP will not be able to maintain law and order in Uttar Pradesh.
Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Tuesday demanded a probe into the charges made by the self-proclaimed US-based cyber expert, terming them as "very serious" as they concern the survival of democracy in India.
Till now, the postal ballots were counted in the beginning followed by votes polled in voting machines.
The Supreme Court has made it clear that random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs will take place in five polling booths per assembly segment. Accordingly, the exercise will be held in 20,600 of the 10.35 lakh polling stations across the country.
Shah rubbished Delhi CM's contention that it may have something to do with alleged manipulation of EVMs.
The BJP chief ministerial candidate calls the AAP chief negative
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
The protesters, including AAP MLAs and newly appointed Delhi convener Gopal Rai, alleged that the manipulation of electronic voting machines was killing democracy.
Siddiqui, who hails from Banda, was earlier removed as the party in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and was appointed as the MP unit in-charge after the assembly poll debacle.
This is for the first time in a Lok Sabha election that results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines.
The Congress MP from Sivaganga also slammed the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance and said the people of Tamil Nadu do not want a government which has any "stain, scent or shadow" of the BJP as its 'Hindi-Hindutva' agenda "irritates" them.
The challenge would be held in the first week of May and could continue for ten days.
The Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and some smaller parties will contest the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls together, and an announcement in this regard would be made soon, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Tuesday.
In percentage terms, 1.8 per cent voters in Gujarat pressed the NOTA button on electronic voting machines in Gujarat, as against 0.9 per cent in the hill state (over 33,000 voters).
EVM -- described as the "devil" by one worried voter -- was the hot topic of discussion among the people
The SC agreed to hear next week a review plea filed by 21 Opposition leaders seeking further increase in random matching of VVPAT
"In the entire elections, there were massive crowds in my rallies. I did not expect such a thing will happen. I hope the next government will work better than SP government," he said.
To counter the doubts over the machine's reliability, the Election Commission has come out with a list of FAQs to put across its views in public domain.
Over 74 lakh voters will seal the fate of 628 candidates in electronic voting machines between 8 am to 5 pm when polling concludes, state Election office informed.
As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
Among other things, the code bars the government from announcing policy decisions.
"We had not contemplated that the alliance will fare so badly. People are not able to digest the poll results. It is against their sentiment and aspirations," Mayawati said on Thursday.
Among the major political parties, chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United is contesting in 35 of the 71 seats, followed by its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (29), while the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal has fielded its candidates in 42 and its coalition partner Congress is in the fray in 20 assembly segments.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas on Sunday questioned the clean chit given to Rahul Gandhi by the Election Commission on the allegation that he had violated secrecy of voting by entering the enclosure of EVM in one of the polling booths in Amethi.
Over 73.44 lakh voters exercised their franchise in 10,592 polling stations spread over 13 districts in the Barak Valley, the hill regions and parts of central and lower Assam.
Reacting to the ED's summons to Raj, his estranged cousin and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, in an intriguing comment, said he did not expect any 'solid outcome'.
"For the Lok Sabha elections, we are making meticulous planning on all fronts including electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT)," he said.
The tallying of VVPAT slips with the votes cast and stored in the EVMs will be done to demonstrate that the voting system has been working perfectly.
Kejriwal administered newly-elected AAP councillors a pledge of "loyalty".
The clearance to the proposal of "procurement of VVPAT units" was given by the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a brief discussion. The EC has sought Rs 3,174 crore in all for procuring over 16 lakh paper trail machines to cover all polling stations in the country.
Shah said Modi's 'pro-poor policies' led the BJP to victory in UP.
The parties failed to make an impact with their voteshares getting restricted to 2 per cent or below.
At least 117 Electronic Voting Machines malfunctioned and were replaced during the first phase of assembly polls in 65 constituencies in Assam, where the two-phase election process started Monday.
Arvind Kejriwal said that 20-25% of AAP's votes transferred to SAD-BJP.
The MNS has convened a meeting of party office-bearers on Tuesday in Mumbai to discuss the issue.
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