MP Assembly Elections: Congress MP Digvijaya Singh Asks ECI to Handover VVPAT Slips to Voters

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh has once again made headlines in the lead-up to the state assembly polls by requesting the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) slips to voters.

On Monday, Singh addressed the ECI on X (formerly Twitter) with this request, citing a report of potential EVM (Electronic Voting Machines) tampering during the trial of these machines in the state.

“Dear Election Commission, we have a single request: kindly hand over the VVPAT slip to us separately, which we will securely store in a distinct ballot box. Prior to the official counting, we propose counting the votes from any 10 of these ballot boxes and cross-referencing the results with those from the counting unit. If the results from both sources align, then the official results can be declared from the counting unit. What objections could the Election Commission have to this proposal? We urge the Supreme Court to take this matter seriously and protect democracy in our country,” Singh posted on X.

Additionally, the Congress leader shared a YouTube link that demonstrated during the trial of EVMs in Madhya Pradesh, only one political party’s VVPAT slips were being received.

In response to Singh’s tweet, Rajneesh Agarwal, the state secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), criticized the Congress Party, asserting that whenever the Congress performs poorly in elections, they tend to blame EVMs.

“Every time the Congress faces a significant electoral setback, they resort to blaming EVMs. Despite the fact that previous allegations were dismissed by both the Supreme Court and the ECI, Digvijaya Singh continues to mislead the public by attributing the Congress’s defeat to EVMs. Congress has lost its credibility, and they are already making efforts to raise such allegations,” Agarwal remarked.

He went on to predict that the BJP would secure victory in the upcoming assembly polls, likely winning more than 150 out of the 230 seats in the state.

Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to hold assembly polls on November 17, with the vote counting slated for December 3, 2023.