The Maha Vikas Aghadi – thumped last week in the Maharashtra election – is planning a national protest against the credibility of EVMs, or electronic voting machines, which it blames for its defeat.
The MVA – fronted by the Congress and the Shiv Sena and NCP factions led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar – also plans to move the court to return to ballot papers.
Mr Thackeray and Mr Pawar met defeated MVA candidates Wednesday to form legal teams, at the state and national levels, to address the longstanding concern for opposition parties.
The MVA has loudly protested the result of the Maharashtra election that was won by the Mahayuti alliance of the BJP and the Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar factions of the Sena and NCP.
The Mahayuti cruised to victory, winning 235 of 288 Assembly seats. The BJP won 132 – its best-ever score in a Maharashtra election – on its own and is expected to lead the next government.
The MVA won just 49 seats; the Thackeray Sena got 20, the Congress 16, and Sharad Pawar’s NCP group just 10 to record the veteran leader’s worst ever electoral performance.
Mr Pawar’s party had contested 86 seats, and he has urged his losing candidates to request an analysis of the VVPAT, or Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail, to confirm the voting numbers. Senior NCP leaders, including grandnephew Rohit Pawar, have alleged fraud while vote-counting.
Like the NCP, the Congress is also furious over its low strike rate; the party contested 101 seats and won just 16. The Thackeray Sena, meanwhile, fielded 95 candidates but won just 20 seats.
The opposition bloc – which has protested against EVMs earlier too, including after a surprise defeat in the Haryana Assembly election last month – has been indignant since; Congress boss Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday demanded a return to ballot papers, like the United States.
Nana Patole, the ex-chief of the Congress’ state unit, Nana Patole, who quit after the results were announced, similarly denounced EVMs, insisting it is not being taken seriously.
These complaints come after the Supreme Court – which gave EVMs a thumbs-up in April, when the Lok Sabha election was being held – dismissed a petitioner’s plea to return to ballot papers.
The court pointed out faulty EVMs are not flagged when the opposition wins an election.
READ | “EVMs Not Tampered When You Win?” Court’s “No” To Paper Ballots
That reasoning has also been flagged by the BJP. Senior Maharashtra BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, who is widely expected to be named the next Chief Minister, responded sharply to claims about rigged EVMs by pointing out the Congress had won the Jharkhand election.
“JMM (and Congress) won in Jharkhand….The election there was ‘fair’… but if we get a huge victory in Maharashtra, then the Election Commission is ‘biased’ and EVMs were ‘hacked’?”
READ | “Jharkhand Election Fair But If We…”: D Fadnavis On EVM Moans
The Congress has also been criticised, obliquely, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speaking before the Winter Session of Parliament. He slammed his rivals for being “rejected by the people 80-90 times” and, in a pre-emptive strike, accused them of already disrupting the House.
The row over EVMs rears its head after every major election, with the opposition accusing the BJP of engineering victories by hacking the machines. The BJP has steadily refuted the claims.
READ | In VVPAT Case, Court’s 2 Big Directions On EVMs, Symbol Units
The Election Commission, meanwhile, has hit back at the Congress
After the Haryana election results were questioned the EC criticised the party for making “baseless allegations… when faced with inconvenient electoral outcomes”, and warned it, and others, against “unfounded and sensational complaints” during an election and as votes are cast and counted.
After the Haryana election a furious Congress refused to accept the verdict – a record third consecutive term for the BJP, which won despite conceding a large early lead. The Congress insisted the EVMs had been hacked and questioned alleged delays in publishing voting data.
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