Before Mayawati’s red flag on EVMs, warning came from Maharashtra

The charge made by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati regarding the possibility of tampering of electronic voting machines or EVMs in context of extraordinarily high tally for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls had, in fact, first surfaced in the recently concluded Mumbai’s municipal elections.

Doubts about possible manipulation of EVMs have been lingering ever since Shrikant Shirsat, an independent candidate for the BMC polls, alleged that his vote and those of his family members and neighbours were not recorded, despite voting through EVM for ward no. 164 at the 90-feet Road booth in Saki Naka. The result from the booth showed zero or nil vote for him.

Shirsat complained about the strange anomaly to the Election Commission on February 27. His allegations alongside his picture were published in Mumbai Mirror the next day, where he said that even his own vote was not accounted for by the EVM, leading to grave doubts about its proper and accurate functioning.

Shirsat said that he had contested the last assembly polls and got 1,500 votes, though this time he scored a poor 44. Similar apprehensions were expressed by another BMC candidate Gorakh Awhad in ward no. 51 and Shyam Mankar from Pune, who got only five votes in the local municipal elections.

Thus, Mayawati is not alone in alleging extraordinary results coming through the EVMs in UP and Uttarakhand polls in a manner that favours BJP alone and, thus, sending non-BJP parties in a tizzy. She has pointed out that in several booths in Muslim-dominated areas, the vote tally has unbelievably gone in favour of the BJP so much so that it is difficult for any discerning observer to swallow. As for Punjab, where Congress has won handsomely, Mayawati said that manipulating EVMs in Punjab could have backfired since Congress was visibly way ahead.

In Maharashtra this has already been noticed as per reports, even as assembly polls were underway in five other states. And this became conspicuous when a social entrepreneur Ravi Ghate opened a helpline in Pune to monitor complaints regarding inaccuracies of EVMs. As per Mumbai Mirror, Ghate’s helpline was inundated with complaints and in five hours as many as 750 complaints were received.

The BSP chief has not only expressed serious apprehensions about possible tampering of EVMs through the assembly polls but also referred to a similar possibility during 2014 general elections, when BJP scored an astoundingly high number of votes in UP and won nearly all the seats barring those of leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav and a few others.

Earlier, there have only been apprehensions about the fudging of economic data by the Centre so as to make claims about growth picking up at a faster rate than under past regimes. But now with the latest suspicions brought forth by Mayawati about EVMs, warning signs are bound to start flashing.

This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own.