Srinagar: Panthers Party patron Prof Bhim Singh Monday alleged that Electronic Voting Machines were manipulated in the recently concluded elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner of India, V.S.Sampath, Singh has maintained that Jammu and Kashmir has never witnesses free and fair elections. He has said that even militancy in the state was the bye-product of rigging in assembly elections and has hold Dr Farooq Abdullah responsible for the mess.
Singh appealed to the CEC India to thoroughly probe the functioning of EVMs used in the state. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modis nine election rallies in the state created chaos and confusion and his arrival in the state deprived all opposition parties to hold their respective rallies in the districts where Prime Minister addressed and organized his helicopter-borne rallies in utter violation of all the election rules, laws thus shredding all the norms in the Model Code of Conduct.
The functioning of EVMs has always remained under question. Manipulation of EVMs and programming it to the convenience of the interested parties having absolute control over the machine and its physical handling suggest that it is only because of this reason that poll has been recorded over 80%. On the other hand Jammu City has three constituencies and the polling did not exceed 66%. Rather there was 60% poll in Gandhinagar (Jammu City) Assembly constituency where the road communication is 100% perfect as compared to Sonawari or Bani. Bani Assembly segment is on the top of hills. The voters in several stations have to walk for miles to cast their votes. Same is the situation in Billawar, Basohli (Kathua) and Bandipur (Kashmir), the letter reads.
Singh in his letter to the CEC has said that hi election in a bye-election to the Lok Sabha in 1988 experienced the same catastrophe, when I won in 13 Assembly segments and was made to loose in two Assembly segments where polling was shown 90% or above. My election petition was allowed yet I could not enter the Parliament because that particular (10th) Lok Sabha stood dissolved by the date the judgment was delivered by Mr. Justice K.K. Gupta of J&K High Court. In several countries of the world, they have discarded use of EVMs in sensitive polls. The use of EVMs has discredited the parliamentary democracy particularly when the ruling class is a party to the polls.
Singh has urged upon the Chief Election Commissioner of India to set up an expert committee to probe the polling trends in the constituencies where the poll was 80% or above.
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