In yet another setback for Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a review petition filed by him along with representatives of 20 other parties seeking to count at least 50 per cent of the VVPAT slips along with EVMs during the counting of votes.
Supreme Court took less than a minute to dismiss the review petition, saying it did not want to modify the earlier order.
Naidu went to New Delhi to personally attend the court to give an impression to the people that he is fighting for democratic rights of the people for having a free and fair election.
Naidu and other opposition leaders filed a review petition after Election Commission of India has turned down the request of them on the counting of 50 per cent VVPAT slips along with EVMs.
The court directed that only 5 VVPAT slips counting in each assembly segment could be allowed for sample verification.
The EC had argued that results of the Lok Sabha election could be delayed by five days if 50 per cent VVPATs in every Assembly segment was counted.
Opposition leaders led by Naidu told the court that "Increase of VVPATs counting from 1 to 5 is not a reasonable number and does not lead to satisfaction desired by this court" and that the court should review its order.
After the Supreme Court’s order, too, Naidu did not change his satand. He said all the 21 opposition parties would meet the Election Commission India again on VVPATs counting.
“We will not give up but will continue our movement to bring transparency in the Indian election system,” he said.
He reminded that when the ballot was in force it took only 24 hours for counting of ballots.
"How EC can say that it will take 6 days for counting of VVPAT slips when the ballot took only 24 hours? Where is transparency?"
He pointed out that in Bihar, 6 EVMs were found in a hotel and the EC has brought Rs.9 thousand crores to bring VVPATs and still people have doubts on EVMs.
