Oppn Parties To Meet Election Commission Today Over VVPAT Verification

Among those who attended the meeting were Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu, Nationalist Congress Party's Praful Patel, DMK's Kanimozhi, Trinamool Congress' Derek O'Brien, Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party's Satish Chandra Misra, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Manoj Jha, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitraram Yechury, Communist Party of India leader D. Raja and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal.

The leaders will later meet the Election Commission (EC) about their concerns.

While going for the meeting, Yechury said there is no clarity on how the EC will take a decision if there is a mismatch between the EVM and VVPAT (Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail).

"The Supreme Court has ruled that there should be five per cent match between EVM and VVPAT. The question is that if there is a mismatch, what will the Election Commission do," he said.

The opposition leaders are alleging that the EVMs have been "compromised" and "can be manipulated", and thus, there should be tallying of its figures with VVPAT slips.

Naidu continued to voice his suspicions about the alleged manipulation of EVMs on Monday, even as he said political parties were now busy protecting the machines as there were rumours that the data stored in those was being changed using a frequency.

The TDP chief claimed that manipulating an EVM was as easy as tapping a phone and reiterated his demand for 50 per cent voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) verification in the Lok Sabha polls.

His statement came in the wake of exit polls predicting another term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with some saying the NDA will get over 300 seats to comfortably cross the majority mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha.

(With inputs from agencies)