After the results of the 2017 Assembly Elections were declared, AAP’s kingpin Arvind Kejriwal has been working overtime to somehow prove that faulty EVM’s were the reason his party came a distant 2nd in the Punjab elections and lost deposits in 38 out of 39 seats in Goa.
In his endeavour to prove EVM tampering, Kejriwal had spread an outright lie about VVPAT equipped EVM’s, and had called for the use of ballot paper, demanding that VVPAT slips should be counted to ascertain if the election was free and fair:
EC should count slips of VVPAT and match it with figures of EVM results if it matches people’s trust will increase: Kejriwal pic.twitter.com/yNoFgpbnAK
— ANI (@ANI_news) March 15, 2017
In the same press conference Kejriwal had alleged that 25-30% of AAP votes in Punjab might have been transferred to the BJP-SAD via rigging. Kejriwal had also claimed that the sole intention of the BJP was to not allow the AAP to come to power and also claimed that since a SAD victory would have made things obvious, they made sure that it was Congress which won. Hence he had called for a counting of VVPAT slips which would have ensured that fraud would have been caught. This is how the VVPAT helps in detecting fraud:
VVPAT is a system where the machine prints a paper slip after a voter presses the button on the EVM and the voter physically verifies if the paper slip has the name and symbol of the same party (and candidate) he voted for. It can basically make the election process tamper proof as it takes care of two scenarios:
- Say a voter pressed the AAP button on the EVM and the VVPAT slip which the voter can see, showed the name and symbol of AAP. But the EVM which Modi had rigged ended up attributing the vote to the BJP. This is what Kejriwal basically alleges happened and a counting of VVPAT slip would have ensured that the truth came out. This can be easily checked by tallying electronic votes with the slips.
- The voter voted for AAP but the VVPAT slip showed BJP hence the voter can raise a hue and cry then and there.
The Election Commission counted the VVPAT slips. So did any fraud emerge?
Sadly for Kejriwal and co, there was no fraud. According to this report the paper trail in Punjab and Goa tallied with EVM results in Punjab and Goa. The analysis of results in all constituencies in Goa and 33 seats in Punjab having the facilities of VVPAT showed little variation with respect to other constituencies which didn’t have paper trail. In the 33 seats of Punjab with VVPAT, Congress won 20 seats and AAP won in 6 seats. Also when it comes to Goa the results were the same with Congress winning 17 seats, BJP 13 and the rest winning 10 seats.
Hence going by the above report, Kejriwal’s theory of EVM tampering doesn’t hold true and the elections were indeed conducted in a free and fair manner. We need a new conspiracy now, perhaps aliens?
