Nellore: Political parties train agents on keeping tab on EVMs

Nellore: In view of numerous complaints on EVMs and doubts over their functioning, both the major political parties, Telugu Desam and  YSR Congress are gearing up to train their agents about the counting exercise, scheduled for
May 23.  

Leaders of the political parties are advising the agents to remain in the counting hall and pay special attention to the data being extracted from EVMs till the results are collected from the last EVM.  

Incidentally, there was no such training in the past even in 2014 when elections were held with EVMs but the reports over neck-to-neck fight in several segments and likelihood of malfunctioning of the machines prompted the parties to arrange proper training to their agents to orient them for the exercise.

While the YSR Congress asked the senior politicians and retired bureaucrats to give the necessary training to their agents in Vijayawada, the TD is deputing trainers from state office to train the agents deputed in  districts, including Nellore and Prakasam.  

It is a normal practice for the agents to leave the counting hall in the middle of the process, if the majority is huge to their rival.  However, specific instructions are being given this time to the agents to remain in the counting hall till the end as the trend may change at any time and their candidate may win even with one vote.  

Because of some complaints over Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), the agents have been asked to pay special attention when counting staff compare the votes polled with the slips of VVPATs.  

TD Nellore district unit president and MLC Beeda Ravichandra said that differences between the figures of actual votes polled and statistics announced by the  returning officers based on EVMs, led them to take up the training programme seriously and in a big way.  

He said the TD did similar exercise in 1999 too following rumours over the Congress winning and several officials meeting Dr YSR under the assumption that he is forming the government.  

Meanwhile Forest Minister and TDP nominee for Ongole Parliament, Sidda Raghava Rao has been attending to the training sessions for the agents and advising them to stay put in the counting hall till the end pointing to the possibility for some gimmicks during counting.

Similar suggestions are being given to the agents by TDP nominees for assembly seats, Damacharla Janardhan and Kadiri Babu Rao.