Election Commission decision is setback to democracy: Tulasi Reddy

Kadapa: APCC vice president Narredy Tulasi Reddy, has alleged that the Election Commission decision was a serious setback to democracy.

All the 23 parties were demanding to count the voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips so why was the Election Commission refusing to do this, he asked.

Mr Reddy addressed a media conference at Vempalle, Kadapa district on Wednesday morning. While every party had asked the EC to conduct future elections through Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), in this election the EC should ask for a counting of VVPAT slips he said.

If the EC was not interested in counting VVPAT slips, they should make packets of groundnut seeds with the VVPAT slips, Mr Tulasi Reddy said.

Mr Tulasi Reddy further added that it was very unfortunate that the RC was being obstinate and refusing their request.

From 1952 to 2004 all the Parliament and Assembly elections were done by ballot papers and within 24 to 48 hours the results were also declared, he recalled. The local body and panchayat elections are still being conducted with ballot papers Mr Tulasi Reddy said. 173 countries out of 191 in the world are using ballot papers for their elections.

Even developed countries like America and Germany use ballots in election Mr Tulasi Reddy said and added that some countries had started using EVMs for a while but soon noticed the issues and came back to ballot system he said.

The EC had accepted that in some areas the EVMs were troubled and polling had to be extended till very late, so why was the EC not accepting to count the VVPAT slips he questioned.

The BJP and YSRC are the parties supporting Election Commission decisions, he alleged.

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