Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday raised the pitch for reintroducing ballot papers for voting.

He renewed his attack on the use of EVMs (electronic voting machines ) in elections and said EVMs developing snags was a dangerous trend for democracy.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here shortly after paying homage to former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, whose death anniversary was observed on Tuesday, the SP president said the Election Commission should do away with EVMs and return to the earlier process of using ballot papers in all the upcoming elections.

The Lok Sabha elections are due in 2019.

He said developed nations the world over were using ballot papers and queried why could not the same be done in our country. The former chief minister said he would write to the leaders of other political parties on the issue of EVM usage so that a united opposition to its use could be put forth.

His effort would be to first talk to the leaders of the other political parties,
Akhilesh Yadav said. His demand for ballot paper came in the wake of reports of widespread malfunctioning of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in the Kairana parliamentary and Noorpur Vidhan Sabha bypolls held on Monday.

He said it needed investigation as to why these machines malfunctioned the maximum in areas considered to be the stronghold of the ‘gatbandhan’ (to be read as Rashtriya Lok Dal and SP alliance supported by the Congress ) candidates.

He alleged that there appeared to be a method in the malfunctioning of the
electronic machines aimed at keeping the voters away from the non-BJP candidates.

Largescale complaints of the malfunctioning of EVMs and VVPATs were reported from the Kairana and Noorpur constituencies. It was alleged that the maximum complaints of technical glitches were reported from the Dalit and Muslim dominated areas said to be the stronghold of the ‘gatbandhan’
candidates. At places, the glitches reportedly took over two hours to be rectified.

The Kairana bypoll was necessitated by the death of Hukum Singh. The BJP has fielded his daughter Mriganka Singh from the constituency. She has been pitted against Tabassum Hasan, the Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate who is being suppoted by the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.

The Noorpur constituency, also held by the BJP fell vacant following the death of the sitting MLA Lokendra Singh Chauhan. The BJP has fielded his wife Avani Singh. The SP has fielded Naeemul Hasan from this constituency.