Mumbai, May 9: Two days after the Supreme Court declined to increase the count for the verification of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips with Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar again raised doubts over the use of EVMs. Sharad Pawar said he once had witnessed that his vote for NCP went to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"I am also concerned about the machine. In Hyderabad and Gujarat, some people kept an EVM before me and asked me to press a button. I pressed the button against ‘watch’ (the NCP’s symbol) and the vote got cast in favour of ‘lotus’ (the BJP’s symbol). I saw it happening myself," Pawar told reporters. The NCP chief, however, said he did not claim that all EVMs function in such a way. Devendra Fadnavis Must Give Up Home Affairs Portfolio: Sharad Pawar.

The former Union minister and other opposition leaders have been voicing concerns over the use of EVMs, claiming the machines were prone to manipulation. The NCP and other 20 opposition parties also recently approached the Supreme Court seeking a review of its April 8 order directing the Election Commission to increase random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs to five polling booths per Assembly segment. Sharad Pawar Says Mamata Banerjee, Chandrababu Naidu, Mayawati Among Top PM Contenders in Fray.

The plea was filed by opposition leaders led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Senior advocate and Congress leader A M Singhvi, appearing for petitioners, told the bench that the apex court increased the random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs to five polling booths per Assembly segment and they are now seeking that it should be increased to 25 per cent at least. (With PTI inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 09, 2019 10:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).