Naidu not ‘entirely happy’ with SC verdict on VVPAT

Naveen S Garewal

Tribune News Service

Pamarru (Machlipatnam), April 8

An upbeat Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today expressed confidence that his party would win both Assembly and parliamentary elections, declaring: “Andhra MPs will play a major role in the formation of the 17th Parliament.”

In an exclusive interview with The Tribune in Pamarru town of Krishna district, the birthplace of TDP founder NT Rama Rao, he said he was not “entirely satisfied’ with the Supreme Court judgment on VVPAT slips. “It is something, at least. I was the first signatory to the petition moved by the Opposition, seeking that at least 50 per cent votes be verified using the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).”

He said the Election Commission of India (ECI) must assure the parties, which feared the voting machines could be hacked, that even if there was a difference of one vote in one case, then VVPATS and EVMs across the country must be checked as an error in one EVM, howsoever small, implied there could be more such errors in other machines.

“I understand electronics well. There is a chip in the machine that can be manipulated, and it is the duty of the ECI to remove doubts. During the Telangana polls last time, 25 lakh names of voters got deleted and all the ECI said was ‘sorry.’ This is not the way the ECI should function”.

Apprehending hacking, he said: “The ECI must stick to its claim of zero per cent error in EVMs. I demand that to build the trust of political parties and the people, the votes polled in the EVMs must be counted first and the five VVPATs to be compared with the EVMs should be selected through draw of lots, listing the VVPAT numbers on paper in a transparent manner. Further, I ask the ECI not to reveal which machines will be selected for cross-verification until the counting is completed and recorded”.

To ensure there was no “rigging”, the Andhra Chief Minister said the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) cadre had been told to remain vigilant and not allow Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) to “interfere” in Andhra Pradesh via his “proxy Jaganmohan Reddy, the YSR Congress chief”.

He accused KCR of playing “unfair during the Telangana Assembly elections and trying the same tricks in Andhra”.

He accused the ECI of being partisan, citing the transfer of the state’s Intelligence chief and Chief Secretary. “Clearly, the ECI is working against us at the behest of the PM and KCR to help Reddy. But I can assure you, we are forming the government again with a very comfortable margin. The people have seen through the Modi-KCR-YSR game”.