‘Got elected four times through EVMs’: After Omar Abdullah, Supriya Sule junks EVM rigging charge

After Omar Abdullah, NCP-SCP’s Supriya Sule appears to have junked the EVM rigging charge – an issue the Congress has been raising ever since the shocking defeat in Haryana and Maharashtra.

On Thursday, Sule said that it was her personal view that Yugendra Pawar, who lost assembly elections from Baramati to his uncle Ajit Pawar, should not ask for the recounting of the votes. Therefore, she said, she asked him to take back the application for recounting and he has done so.

Sule, the sitting MP from Baramati, then suggested that there was no scam in the machines as she herself was elected four times through the same machines. “When I got elected four times by voting through EVMs, then how can I say there is a scam in it,” she said.

“However many people are saying that there are a lot of questions over voters’ list. Therefore, I am of the view that if things are done transparently, be it EVMs or ballots, then what is the issue with it? If people want to have elections using ballot paper then let it be using ballot paper, what is the problem?” she added.

Today, Yugendra Pawar withdrew his application for a vote recount. He got 80,233 votes in the assembly polls against his uncle’s 181,132 (66% of votes). After withdrawing the application, Yugendra told the reporters, “Every candidate had the right to apply for recounting. I applied for it. But, as advised by senior leader Sharad Pawar, I withdraw the recounting application.”

Sule’s comment comes just days after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is also an INDIA bloc ally, criticised the opposition’s demand to revert to ballot paper voting. He pointed to the malpractice of “ballot stuffing” in the past. Abdullah reiterated his support for EVMs and said he had not forgotten when votes were fraudulently cast when the elections used to happen through ballot papers.

Abdullah questioned the logic of rejecting EVMs only after losing an election. “If someone has a complaint regarding EVMs, that complaint should remain throughout the year. Complaints cannot be raised only when you lose,” the NC leader said. “Should we go back to the ballot paper? Have we forgotten what used to happen with ballot paper? Votes were inserted in ballot boxes…ballot stuffing. I have not forgotten it. My first and second elections happened through ballot boxes. Then these machines came. If not EVMs, then what?”

Abdullah’s National Conference and Congress are part of the INDIA bloc and they had contested assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir together. After the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and Samajwadi Party demanded elections through ballot papers. This demand, however, intensified recently after Congress suffered a shocking defeat in Haryana and Maharashtra.

On November 26, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge called for a return to ballot papers. “The votes of all the poor and oppressed communities are going to waste. They should all demand voting by ballot paper. Let them keep EVMs with them. We don’t want EVMs; we want voting on ballot paper. Then they will know what their position is and where they stand,” he said.

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