An estimated 66 per cent of the electorate on Tuesday exercised their franchise in assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh amidst sporadic violence in which one polling agent was killed.
The assembly elections in the states of Haryana, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh will be held in a single phase on October 13.Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla announced the dates in a press conference on Monday.The counting of votes will take place on October 22.Electronic Voting Machines will be used in the electoral process in all three states, he said. The electoral battle will be fought in 288 seats in Maharashtra, 90 seats in Haryana and 60 seats in Arunachal.
The Election Commission has now officially taken up the investigation of charges of rigging and fraud through the Electronic Voting Machines.
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 Election Commission is yet to hear from the government on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's idea of overseas Indian passport holders voting in the next general elections.
Decks were cleared on Thursday for holding of assembly elections in the state, which has been under President's Rule for the last nine months, with the Union Cabinet approving dissolution of the 81-member House.
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.
"If you ask me is it feasible (to have compulsory voting) in a election on a national scale. It is not," he told reporters in New Delhi on the sidelines of the Election Commission's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Rejecting the contention of political parties like Bharatiya Janata Party, AIADMK and CPI(M) that electronic voting machines (EVMs) were tampered with during the Lok Sabha polls, Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla today said no one was able to prove it.
'Although the Election Commission remains convinced about the EVM's integrity, as a fair umpire of the game it was necessary to travel the last mile to convince political players that the entire process was not only fair but transparently so.' A fascinating excerpt from former Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla's new book, Excerpted from Every Vote Counts: The Story Of India's Elections.
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