Ahmedabad: Following defeat in the recent
elections in six municipal corporations in the state, the
Gujarat Congress on Thursday alleged that the EVMs used during the
polls were tampered with, and claimed that it was the "machine
magic", which did the trick for BJP.
"Records show that till 4 pm the percentage of voting was
around 20-25 in most of the state. Then in the last one hour
nearly 15-20 per cent votes were cast. Now how is that
possible," senior Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela told
reporters here.
"All EVMs have been made by a Hyderabad-based company for
the state government eight years ago. Therefore, it is the
state government which has control over them. I believe that
they have tampered with the Electronic Voting Machines
(EVMs)," Vaghela alleged.
"It is not Modi magic, but machine magic which has
brought victory to the BJP. The municipal polls do not reflect
public opinion," he said.
The former Union Textile minister also demanded an
enquiry into the matter and demanded that a committee
comprising of members of BJP, Congress and technical experts
be constituted to enquire about the EVMs.
Gujarat Congress President Siddharth Patel said that by
tampering EVMs BJP had tampered with the public opinion.
"The EVMs used during the polls are old and of outdated
technology. Voting preference of a voter could be tampered
using the simple bluetooth technology available today," Patel
alleged.
"The EVMs need to be checked as these machines have been
made for the state government by a private company and not by
the Central Election Commission," he added.
Patel further alleged that a technical expert from the
US was called specially for the poll by the chief minister's
office. "This confirms our doubts that the EVMs were tempered
with by the state government," he said.
He added that they would also introspect on party's
defeat in the all six municipal corporation elections, the
results of which were declared on Tuesday.
Out of the six municipal corporation the BJP won five
(Ahmedabad, Surat Rajkot, Vadodara and Bhavnagar) with
two-third majority while one (Jamnagar) was won by saffron
party with simple majority.
In run up to the polls, a number of Congress workers had
protested against the party after they were denied tickets for
the municipal polls.
There were also a couple of incidents of violence where
the workers had ransacked ward offices of the party in some
areas.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, October 14, 2010, 21:41