People's mandate is sacrosanct and has to be above any iota of reasonable doubt, Pranab said.
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.
A lacklustre show by the Congress in Bihar seems to have proved costly for the opposition grand alliance, as it dragged down the RJD too from government formation in the Hindi heartland state.
"If the direction of satellites to Mars and Moon can be controlled from the earth, then why can't EVM be hacked," Udit Raj said in a tweet in Hindi. "If elections were held in America with EVMs, could Trump have lost," he asked.
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.
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.
According to an AAP functionary, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting with senior party leaders, including Sanjay Singh and Manish Sisodia, and political strategist Prashant Kishor at his residence on Saturday night.
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.
The Election Commission has decided to replace 9,30,430 EVMs purchased before 2006 as the older machines are nearing their 15-year life cycle.
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.
According to the EC, no mismatch has been reported since the practice of cross-checking votes was introduced.
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.
Gupta tried to raise the issue of alleged corruption in land deals involving Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Public Works Department Minister Satyendra Jain.
The Gujarat polls are drawing to an end with Tuesday being the final phase of campaigning before the state goes for polling in the second phase on December 14. Results for the 182-seat assembly will be announced on December 18. Ahead of the polling, here's everything you need to know about the candidates.
The fund house had offered two options to affected investors -- either monetisation of assets by trustees or hiring a third party to conduct the process.
Strong rooms spread across the city storing the electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being heavily guarded, with a 'three-layer security ring'. Tight security arrangements have also been put in place at various centres across the national capital.
The NCP, along with other opposition parties, had repeatedly raised concerns over the possibility of EVM tampering.
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.
The dinner was followed by a meeting in which nearly two dozen allies facilitated Prime Minister Modi.
Mann said there was no use in finding fault with EVMs and the party should introspect on the reasons behind its defeat.
Exit polls predict clean sweep for the BJP, rout for AAP.
India has provided 1,935 electronic voting machines to Bhutan for the country's second national elections to be held on Saturday.
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.
'I know people will say I am raising this issue because I have lost. There have been a lot of complaints about the electronic voting machines. There is a view that the machines were defective. 'When advanced countries like Japan and the US have discarded the use of these machines and gone back to using ballot papers, the Election Commission should take a fresh look at this,' former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot tells Anita Katyal.
Leaders of 22 opposition parties met the Election Commission and demanded verification of VVPAT slips of randomly-selected polling stations before the counting of the votes.
They also demanded that if any discrepancy is found during VVPAT verification, 100 per cent counting of the paper slips of VVPATs of all polling stations of that particular assembly segment should be done and compared with the electronic voting machine (EVM) results.
With the Election Commission announcing the much-awaited polling dates on Wednesday, the general election season is well and truly underway.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday slammed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for seeking en bloc voting by Muslims for the Trinamool Congress and said had his party made a similar appeal to Hindus, it would have been criticised and censured.
A direct contest between nominees of the BJP-led NDA and Congress-headed Grand Alliance is on the cards in 20 constituencies
The Delhi CM said that the people of India won't forgive the Election Commission and the BJP for manipulating the Constitution.
Against the backdrop of the Lok Sabha results, a much larger scale of desertion was anticipated from the TMC. 'It seems, people don't believe that the ship is sinking.'
'We do not think the EC is doing enough to address issue of EVM malfunctioning'
Sporadic incidents of violence were reported from various places that went to polls on Saturday during the first phase of the West Bengal assembly election, even as the overall poll situation was largely peaceful with 79.79 per cent turnout recorded till the end of voting, an official said.
Counting of votes for the 2012 Gujarat assembly elections, which witnessed a historic 71.32 per cent voter turnout, will be held today for all the 182 constituencies across the state.
The Election Commission has rubbished any allegations of misuse of the EVMs.
Former President A P J Abdul Kalam was among a large number of voters in several constituencies in Delhi who on Wednesday faced problems while exercising their franchise because of the malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines.
Till now, the postal ballots were counted in the beginning followed by votes polled in voting machines.
AAP alleged that EVMs are being tampered with to favour BJP.
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.
A range of amusing names of poll candidates in the fray in Meghalaya assembly election is bound to make the name panel in the Electronic Voting Machines sound interesting in many constituencies on February 23.
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