Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
Fourteen people, including 10 polling personnel, have died due to heatstroke in Bihar in the last 24 hours, officials said on Friday afternoon.
The Election Commission has placed orders estimated at more than Rs 300 crore with Electronics Corporation of India Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd to deliver Electronic Voting Machines for the Lok Sabha elections.
'They can't be tampered with because of the very nature of the machines -- they are standalone, and not networked.' 'Also, they can't be rigged because of the kind of custodial security they are subjected to during the election process.'
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.
Voting in the first phase began with reports of multiple faulty electronic voting machines at various booths, prompting Congress leaders to request quick action from the poll body.
AAP alleged that EVMs are being tampered with to favour BJP.
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.
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.
This might be the first time in the country's electoral history that the poll body has convened a press conference on the conclusion of polls.
Leaders of 23 political parties met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, seeking redressal of the issue of alleged tampering of electronic voting machines before Lok Sabha polls.
While the CPI-M delegation watched a demonstration on the various security checks involved with the machines, the NCP team interacted with Commission's technical committee of experts.
The officials said they would need around Rs 4,500 crore to buy nearly 12 lakh additional electronic voting machines and an equal number voter-verifiable paper audit trail machines.
Akhilesh said people feel that they have been misled (by the BJP) for forming the government.
The officer said that as Section 505 is non-cognisable, police have sought permission from court to initiate an investigation.
'PM Modi would have swept the elections in Kashmir after notebandi but then he scrapped Article 370 so all his good work went down the drain.'
'EVMs did not accept votes polled for any party other than BJP'. The BSP chief said that the results in UP and Uttarakhand were surprising and not palatable to anyone.
Amid speculation over early Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission is gearing itself up for holding the mammoth exercise along with assembly elections in five states due later this year by ordering additional EVMs.
Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa speaks to Satya Dosapati, an official of Save Indian Democracy, the organisation which exposed the fraud, who says that the EC's decision is alarming.
The Election Commission has rubbished any allegations of misuse of the EVMs.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
"We will expose this claim," Prasad said, adding that the Congress was insulting the 2014 mandate.
The Election Commission, however, termed the allegations 'baseless'.
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 EC announced on Friday evening that out of eight parties only Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and the CPI-M accepted the dare. Friday was the last date to enlist for the challenge.
The action was taken upon a plea filed by Congress Vikasnagar runner-up candidate Navprabhat on alleged tampering of electronic voting machines.
Under the process, Braille symbols would be installed on the EVMs, thus visually handicapped people should not have any problem in exercising their franchise, a NIVH spokesperson said.
The BJP said the former Congress chief's comments during the public meeting were "extremely objectionable" as they are not just in violation of the model code of conduct but could have serious implications.
Y S Sharmila's message to voters in Kadapa is brief: 'I am YSR's daughter, my brother Jagan has ruined Andhra, vote for me, vote for Congress.' A Ganesh Nadar listens in.
The country has got its first firm order to export these machines to Namibia, while it is in talks with others, including Egypt and Saarc nations.
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.
The respective Dussehra rallies of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray were once again about whose version of Hindutva is genuine and who is the true inheritor of party patriarch Bala Thackeray's legacy.
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.
In the first such initiative, the Bharatiya Janata Party has invited the ruling and Opposition parties from around the world to witness the Lok Sabha elections in India first-hand.
The CM's swipe was aimed not just at Kejriwal but also at the SP and BSP who have been raising questions about the EVMs.
It will be clear whether the voters preferred the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led regime for a third term or the "six guarantees" by the Congress worked any miracles or the BJP's BC chief minister 'mantra' wooed the electors or if there will be a fractured verdict, by tomorrow evening.
Chidambaram told SC that to assure accuracy in the voting process, paper trail is needed as there were chances of tampering with EVMs.
Right to Information activist Anjali Bhardwaj said the VVPAT system should be re-calibrated to be fully voter-verifiable.
'The BJP is racing against its opponents by putting a chain on their legs.'
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.
