Lucknow, Sep 28 (PTI) BSP supremo Mayawati on Monday demanded that voting through electronic voting machines (EVMs) be stopped immediately and the ballot paper system restored, saying doubts over the functioning of EVMs were eroding people's faith in free and fair elections. Speaking about the electoral process, Mayawati said the Constitution had entrusted the Election Commission with conducting elections and Parliament had framed laws and rules to ensure that polls were held fairly."Every person should have the right to cast his vote according to his own choice, and the vote cast by him should go to the person in whose favour he has voted and should be counted in the counting process," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister told select media here.Her remarks came amid a political row over the functioning of the Election Commission and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.She said voters should have no doubt that their vote had "gone into someone else's account or been counted" elsewhere."Because if this happens, naturally this will be the murder of democracy, which will come under the category of a heinous crime, and then people's faith in democracy will be lost," Mayawati said.

She recalled that ballot papers had been used for nearly five decades after the country's first election and were opened and counted in the presence of representatives of all political parties."But this process was ended and the Election Commission started using EVMs in place of ballot papers," she said.Mayawati claimed that the BJP had initially opposed EVMs when the Congress was in power at the Centre, arguing that the electronic chip in the machines could be hacked. She said the BJP had even published a book in support of its objections and had alleged that the Congress won elections by using EVMs."The BJP had said that EVMs are used in most countries because the electronic chip fitted in the machine can easily be hacked and that is why EVMs are not used in most countries and ballot papers are mostly used," she said. "But the surprising thing is that when the BJP won the elections and came to power at the Centre, instead of getting EVMs abolished, it continued the process of voting and counting through EVMs," she said.Mayawati said the BSP had opposed EVM-based voting "from the very beginning" and claimed that sections of voters, particularly disadvantaged and poor people, were increasingly losing faith in the electoral process.

She also alleged that the BJP had manipulated EVMs to ensure the victory of a Azad Samaj Party MP from the Nagina reserved Lok Sabha constituency "despite the MP having no popular base there", claiming that this was done particularly to harm the BSP "This is what the people there believe," she said, referring to Azad Samaj Party (Kanshiram) chief Chandra Shekhar Aazad without naming him. Mayawati said the BSP had challenged the EVM-based election process in the Supreme Court after its objections were not accepted, but the court, instead of ending the EVM process, ordered the use of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines along with EVMs."But there was no benefit from installing VVPAT because all VVPAT slips are not counted during counting of votes through EVMs," she said, adding all VVPAT slips were, therefore, not matched with the EVM count.She further claimed that electronic machines could be remotely affected or hacked and said this prevented voters from being assured that their votes had been counted for the candidates they chose."Such a situation cannot give any voter the confidence that his vote has been counted in the account of the same person for whom he cast his vote," she said. Mayawati said the BSP's demand was clear: "EVM elections should be stopped immediately and the process of voting through ballot papers should be started again."  She said restoring public confidence in free and fair elections was necessary "so that democracy in the country can be properly protected." 

/Agencies