Rigged EVMs? After Shabana, another candidate who got ‘zero votes’ says, ‘my vote wasn’t counted’

(UPDATE: According to data released by the Election Commission, Shabana, the independent candidate got 87 votes. She, however, had claimed in a video, “Me and my family’s votes weren’t counted either as I got zero votes.”)

“Har pratyashi, chahe wo BSP se ho ye Congress se ho ya SP se ho ya AAP se ho, ka ek hi mat hai ki ye chunaav radd kiya jaye aur fir se ho (Every candidate (non-BJP), wishes for cancellation of this election (UP civic polls) and everyone in unison is demading for a re-election),” claims Apoorva Verma, a Samajwadi Party candidate from Janakipuram ward number 58 in a video doing rounds in the social media. She claims in the video that even her vote wasn’t registered as she has got zero votes.

“No impartial election is being conducted, all the elections are being orchestrated to help the BJP win,” she further claims.

In fact, this is second such incident coming from UP civic polls where a candidate has claimed that even their own votes were not registered, at a time when the ruling party of the state is celebrating its massive victory in the civic polls.

“At least my family had voted for me, how can I get zero votes,” asked Shabana, an independent candidate from Shaharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, in a vidoe posted online on Friday. Her husband had added, “where did my vote vanish?”

“We at least had three votes from our family, but we must at least have had 900 votes,” claimed her husband in the video posted by an Aaj Tak journalist. “EVM me sarasar gadbadi hai,” he added in complete disdain.

It is worth noting that it was the first time when Saharanpur, West Uttar Pradesh, saw municipal polls take place and it was earlier reported that In Saharanpur, the names of many voters were found missing from the voters' list.

Actually, on the day of voting, reports of faulty EVMs had emerged from various places including Meerut and Saharanpur where people had alleged that no matter which party they were voting for, their votes were counted as BJPs. During the 1st phase of UP civic polls, AAP leader Atishi Marlena demanded the Election Commission to conduct a thorough investigation into allegations that EVMs used in the Uttar Pradesh civic body polls were casting votes only for the BJP at several places.

Marlena told reporters that cases of EVM malfunctioning were also reported during polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. The one thing common in all cases was that the vote went to the BJP no matter which button was pressed, she claimed. "These cases should be thoroughly investigated by the Election Commission," she had said.

Although BJP swept the civic polls, it is widely being claimed on the social media that wherever EVMs were not used, BJP attained daunting figures. Amidst such talks, videos of candidates claiming rigging of the EVMs, both on the day of election as well as the counting day, is putting a question mark on the manner of the victory and its credibility.

Or did these candidates, if they have gotten zero votes, deliberately didn’t vote for themselves just because they wanted to question the EVMs- one is left wondering.