Levelling serious charges on the Supreme Court, Congress leader Udit Raj on Wednesday asked if the apex court was also involved in EVM rigging.
His statement comes a day after the Supreme Court refused to entertain a PIL seeking 100 per cent matching of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the counting of votes on May 23 for the general elections.
A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, on May 7, rejected a review petition filed by 21 opposition parties seeking a direction to the Election Commission (EC) to increase VVPAT verification from five to at least 50 per cent of EVMs during the counting of votes in the Lok Sabha elections on May 23.
However, the court directed the Election Commission to increase VVPAT verification from one EVM per constituency to five randomly selected EVMs in the elections.
Miffed over the way the Supreme Court has dealt with complaints, Udit Raj tweeted, “Why does the Supreme Court not want all the VVPAT slots to be counted? Is it also involved in rigging? In the process of selection, when the government work has been slow for almost three months, then it takes two to three days to count.”.
सप्रीम कोर्ट क्यों नहीं चाहता की VVPAT की सारी पर्चियों को गिना जाए क्या वो भी धाँधली में शामिल है।चुनावी प्रक्रिया में जब लगभग तीन महीने से सारे सरकारी काम मंद पड़ा हुआ है तो गिनती में दो- तीन दिन लग जाए तो क्या फ़र्क़ पड़ता है @priyankagandhi @INCDelhi @RahulGandhi @PTI_News
— Dr. Udit Raj, MP (@Dr_Uditraj) May 22, 2019
Defending his comment, Raj said, “Election process continues for three months hampering development work, so what is the big deal if it takes 1-2 days more?”.
He further said he was not levelling any allegations on the Supreme Court but only raising concerns.
Earlier on Tuesday, 22 Opposition parties demanded that VVPAT slips at randomly selected five polling booths should be counted first, and if any discrepancy occurs, then VVPAT slips should be tallied for the entire assembly segments.
The Election Commission (EC) said it would discuss the issue on Wednesday.
The meeting just two days ahead of counting of votes and after the exit polls predicted a majority for BJP-led NDA government.
Meanwhile, former President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday expressed his “concern” at reports of alleged tampering of the EVMs saying that the “onus of ensuring institutional integrity lies with the poll body and it must do so and put all speculations to rest”.
His remarks came amidst reports of alleged transportation of EVMs from strongrooms in Uttar Pradesh.