MARGAO: Concerned Goans on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to the President of India Droupadi Murmu via the South Goa Collector Asvin Chandru, IAS, asking for a ban on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and for a transparent election process.
Under the banner ‘Save the Constitution, Save Democracy for Peaceful Co-existence’, the group advocated for voting by Ballot paper and saying that it was necessary in the interest of the nation.
The group claimed that by doing so, i.e. banning EMVs and conducting elections by using ballot paper systems, the faith of the citizens in Indian democracy can be restored. The likes of Jack Mascarenhas, Anthony Da Silva and others were present for this interaction with the District Collector at the time of handing over the memorandum
After providing a list of examples including prior court cases connected to EVM cases which they said led them to lose their faith in the usage of EVMs in the election process, the group referred to the recently held elections in five states.
They claimed that there were nearly 20,000 cases regarding frauds in EVMs that were registered in the portal of the Election Commission of India (ECI), but that the ECI had allegedly not taken any action on it.
They alleged that this implied that the ECI is subservient to the vested interests even though it is a constitutional entity entrusted with the duty to conduct fair and unbiased elections in the country.
They added that if ECI fails to agree to their demands, then the agitation against EVMs by citizens will be “made more vigorous, wide and fierce”, until their objective is fulfilled.
They added that January 24, marked the first phase of their agitation.
They also presented a series of queries along with the petition including why EVMs are being adopted in India when they are banned in technology-advanced countries and that evidence of fraud committed in the past Lok Sabha elections were ignored by the ECI.
They alleged that despite ECI’s public claims that there is no fraud in EVMs, the software programme of EVMs was allegedly shared illegally. They further claimed that there are no sufficient checks in place to ensure that EVMs cannot be manipulated and neither were clear attempts made to show that EVMs had not been manipulated.
