Can’t Say You Don’t Like EVMs Because…”: Ally Junks Congress’ Charge

New Delhi: 

At a time when Congress and its allies have raised questions on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and demanded a return to ballot voting, INDIA alliance member National Conference has said one has to be “consistent” in questioning the voting method.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, also the vice-president of Congress ally National Conference, told news agency PTI in an interview that it is wrong to question EVMs only when results don’t meet expectations.

“When you get a hundred plus members of Parliament using the same EVMs, and you celebrate that as sort of a victory for your party, you can’t then a few months later turn around and say… we don’t like these EVMs because now the election results aren’t going the way we would like them to,” Mr Abdullah said. When he was told that his remarks echoed the BJP’s counter to the Congress’s EVM charge, Mr Abdullah said, “God forbid… No, it’s just that… what’s right is right.”

If you have problems with the EVMs, then you should be consistent in those problems,” he said, adding that parties should not contest polls if they do not trust the voting method.

Citing his example of losing in the Lok Sabha election and scoring a big win in the Assembly polls months later, he said, “One day voters choose you, the next day they don’t. I never blamed the machines.”

In the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls this year, — the first after the Centre revoked its special status and turned it into a Union Territory — the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference posted a stellar show by winning 48 seats in the 95-member Assembly. The Congress, which fought the polls in alliance with National Conference, won six seats