The Andhra Pradesh high court struck down the petition filed by former YSR Congress party minister and present Jana Sena Party leader Balineni Srinivasa Reddy asking a direction to the Election Commission of India not to conduct mock polling to test the efficacy of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
The high court bench headed by Justice Nimmagadda Venkateswarlu, which reserved its judgement after hearing the arguments on August 22, delivered the same on Monday, dismissing Balineni’s petition.
The former minister asked the high court to refrain the Election Commission of India from going ahead with its standard operating procedure (SOP) issued on July 16 to conduct mock polling in place of verification of EVMs and VVPATs against the Supreme Court orders.
Balineni had earlier sought random verification of EVMs and VVPATs following his defeat in the recent elections. When the election authorities conducted mock polling rather than verification, he approached the court.
ECI counsel Avinash Desai informed the court that the Supreme Court did not order for counting of VVPATs and the verdict is applicable to burn memory only.
He said after elections, the EVMs and VVPATs would be sealed and there is no possibility of counting them again without the court orders.
He further said there is no relation between VVPAT slips and burn memory and VVPATs have only flash memory. Balineni’s counsel Subramanya Sriram said the Supreme Court’s verdict clearly mentioned about verification of EVMs and VVPATs for transparency in the conduct of polls.
However, it is unlikely that Balineni would challenge the high court order in the Supreme Court or the ECI now, because he has defected from the YSRCP to the Jana Sena Party.
He had earlier claimed that he was fighting the lone battle against the EVMs, but there was no support from the YSRCP.
