Syed Ali Mujtaba | Caravan Daily
THE 2019 parliamentary election mandate is shrouded in suspense, mystery, uneasiness, and unhappiness among a large section of the people in the country. The clean sweep by the BJP is not accepted by many people and there is a clamor all around, that the BJP has won the polls through EVM manipulation calling the new government as EVM Sarkar.
The needle of suspicion is on the Election Commission which is a hand-picked body of the BJP that presided over the General Election and at the end suspected to bring the ruling dispensation back to power with a resounding majority. The common electorates are not satisfied with the way the seven-phase election was conducted in India and more so with the outcome of the result after almost two months of waiting.
There is enough evidence to prove that EVMs were manipulated during the 2019 parliamentary election. There were reports just before the 7th phase of the polls that trucks filled with EVMS were heading towards the strong room. The information was based on the testimony of the laborers who have loaded them in trucks and party workers who saw the movement of these trucks.
There are also reports that some 20 lakhs EVMS are missing from the custody of the Election commission from a period of almost one year. There are videos evidence of EVMs were found in the hotel rooms, brickyards and old factories, etc and the accountability of all such missing EVMs is on Election Commission. However, the Election Commission has never come out with an answer that how many EVMS are missing and how many have they recovered. In the wake of complete silence by the EC on such serious issue, the people of India are unhappy about its role and duties.
If we go through the website of the Election Commission it’s found that there is a big mismatch between the “votes polled” and “votes counted.” This huge discrepancy is witnessed in over 370 constituencies. For instance in all the 48 Parliamentary constituencies in Maharashtra and 203 assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh there is a mismatch in the votes polled and the votes counted.
The Election commission refuses to explain why such discrepancy has happened at all and why the people should accept the verdict as a fait accompli even in the wake of such large mismatch in the mandate.
Is it a coincidence or malfunction of the EVMs that seven contestants in 2019 General Election have won their seats with the same margin of votes. Bhola Singh, Menaka Gandhi, Upender Narshigh, Harish Dividi, Satpal Singh, Sangh Mitra Murya, Kunwar Bhatender Singh have won by identical margins of 211820/ 140295.
It is the duty of the Election Commission to address the concern of the people why such results have been thrown by the foolproof EVMs and the VVPT.
Every countryman has read the reports of the malfunction of the EVMs from several places in the country. So far there is no clarification from the Election Commission on this matter. The general public is eager to know as to how many places such malfunctioning of EVMs had happened and what did the EC do to rectify such problem to ensure smooth polling.
There is a huge suspicion that the EVMs were manipulated during the General Elections. It can be ascertained from the fact that the result of the Karnataka Municipal Election that was held just six days after the Lok Sabha election under ballot papers was quite different from Parliamentary results. The local body result says that Congress got 1880 seats, JDS 828 seats, and BJP 714 seas. What does this suggest that in one week people changed their preferences when the BJP bagged 25 seats out of 28.
Similarly, if we recall the UP election, where the BJP had swept the polls in 2017, but after six months when the local body elections were held, the results were not the same. The results from UP indicate that BJP won only in the urban areas where EVMs were used but in the rural areas where ballot papers were used, it had a poor showing. What does all this indicate that there has been massive manipulation of the EVMs to ensure the BJP victory in 2019.
There are other reasons of suspicion why the 2019 general election mandate is doubtful. In the aftermath of the results, instead of jubilation all around, many people were shocked and stunned with the results. There was a discussion among a large number of people who did not vote for the BJP as why their preferences have been defaced. The results belied the expectation as they did not vote for the BJP but the results say the contrary. This suggests that the EVMs were manipulated in such a way that whichever button the voter clicked, the votes went to the BJP.
If the BJP had got resounding support from the general masses, the victory should certainly have been celebrated on the street with much jubilation. But in this case, no such sentiments were seen anywhere in the country and people were in shock and dismay as to how the BJP got such resounding mandate.
Those who witnessed the 1977 General election may remember the kind of popular upsurge on the streets across the country, when Congress was voted out of power. There was jubilation all around when Janata Party came to power with resounding madate after the dark days of  National Emergency imposed in 1975.
However, no such scene was witnessed after the 2019 general elections results were declared. This suggests that there was a large scale of mismatch between the popular will and results announced to declare the winners of the general election of 2019.
As an Indian, if we are unhappy with the 2019 election results we must look towards the Courts to get remedy to somehow tally the VVPAT with the votes counted. If proof of discrepancy found, there should reelection in such constituencies without the EVM.
The other suggestion is to test the popular mandate by having repoll in some of the constituencies of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh that went to polls in the first phase. If the BJP maintains the old voting share, we may approve their mandate and accept it as a popular verdict. However, if the BJP loses even one per cent of its vote share then there should be reelection in all the 315 seats where the BJP have won.
Being Indian, if we have to safeguard our democracy we have to fight for both ballot paper and EVM polling. There should be a single day election in the entire country. There should not be any transportation of the EVMS or ballot boxes to any other places from the polling booths. After the polling is over, the polling booth should be converted into strong room where few party workers should be allowed to stand as guards. The next day the counting of the votes should be held at the same place to prevent any strong room malpractices.
The above reforms should be implemented as soon as possible to remove any doubts from the people’s mind who are living and breathing in one of the largest democracy of the world. This farce of seven phase polls spread over two months in the summer of 2019 should never happen again. The results declared has given enough room for suspicion that the popular will has never been reflected.
It is an earnest appeal to all the political parties that they should come forward to streamline the electoral process in the country. There should not be any more fooling with the sentiments of the people who have overwhelmingly participated in the national festival of parliamentary democracy in the country. The results of 2019 general election has conveyed that this EVM Sarkar has hijacked the freedom of expression of Indian Parliamentary democracy.
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(Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. Views expressed here are his personal and Caravan Daily does not necessarily subscribe to them

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2 COMMENTS

  2. You know I would ‘ve loved nothing better than for there to be some substance to what is essentially a sentiment that you have held up here. But it is sooo thin, and apparently the one thing that did raise eyebrows for me somewhat, the 7 identical tallies, even there your data is dodgy. You should’ve provided a link or reference to what you assert there. This is pretty hopeless.

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