YSR Congress party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has come under heavy trolling for indirectly blaming it on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for his party’s humiliating defeat in the recently concluded state assembly elections.
Jagan tweeted on Tuesday, batting for reintroduction of ballot paper system in the elections.
“In electoral practices across the world in almost every advanced democracy, paper ballots are used, not EVMs. We too must move towards the same in upholding the true spirit of our democracy,” he said.
His party’s social media wing – YSJagan Trends Siddham also endorsed his view. In a post on X, it said: “The shift towards paper ballots, as observed in many advanced democracies, is a step in the right direction. It enhances transparency, ensures verifiability, and bolsters public confidence in the electoral outcomes.”
The party said by adopting paper ballots, we can better uphold the true spirit of our democracy and strengthen the trust of our citizens in the democratic process.
“We demand paper ballot voting,” it said.
Within no time, ruling Telugu Desam Party gave a strong counter to Jagan’s tweet.
“Pulivendula MLA garu, it is absolutely not correct to say that the EVMs were tampered when your party got 11 seats. When you got 151 seats, you were all the praise for the EVMs,” the TDP said, while attaching a video clipping of Jagan’s comments in support of the EVMs during the 2019 elections.
Jana Sena Party’s social media wing Sataghni also lashed out at Jagan for his demand for ballot papers and also blacking out Jana Sena on social media platforms.
“It is surprising you are still crying over the usage of EVMs. The same Pulivendula MLA had made statements in support of EVMs in the past,” it said.
It advised Jagan to stop listening to such silly suggestions from his advisors like Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy.
“If you continue to speak like this, you will end up losing one more digit from your existing 11 MLAs,” the Sataghni said.
Even the netizens have pulled up Jagan for demanding revival of ballot paper system.
“When you won, you never said paper ballots are needed. But now say this way. Now you are not even in opposition,” commented one follower.
Another netizen said: “You are fooling yourself with such tweets. You seem to be admitting that if there were paper ballots in 2019, you would have faced big defeat.”
