The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday appealed to the Election Commission to use upgraded electronic voting machines instead of the old ones used in the Lok Sabha elections. Speaking to journalists at the party office here, the BJP’s Maharashtra vice-president Kirit Somaiya, who was part of the delegation that met the EC, said the old EVMs were vulnerable to tampering. As such, only those EVMs manufactured after 2006 and having a provision for audit trail should be used in the coming Assembly polls. “The Election Commission has a stock of 13 lakh EVMs,” Dr. Somaiya said. “Of these, nine lakh are old, while four lakh are new. The new ones are available in States other than Maharashtra. For the State polls, there is a requirement of only about 82,000 EVMs. The EC can get these from other States.” Dr. Somaiya also placed before the EC evidence of bogus voter registration. Documentary evidence from schools, zilla parishads and gram panchayats were given to EC officials about the under-age of people in whose names applications for registration were submitted. He also submitted evidence about the non-residency of individuals in the constituencies that their registration applications were received from. source : The Hindu
