EXCLUSIVE: Cong-SP workers in Allahabad write letters with 'blood' to Yogi demanding use of ballot papers instead of EVMs

(Image: ABP Live)

New Delhi: The war over EVM has reached another level with the Congress and the Samajwadi party (SP) workers from Allahabad district of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) writing letters with their blood demanding discontinuation of EVMs and use of ballot papers instead. Congress' district general secretary Haseed Ahmad and SP workers wrote in total 32 letters with their blood to Chief Minister of UP Yogi Adityanath demanding the use of ballot papers in place of EVMs in the Nagar Nigam elections. In an exclusive conversation with ABP Live's Anurag Kumar, Haseed Ahmad said-"We do not have any trust on EVMs and that's why we want elections to be held on the ballot papers. When petrol pump machines can be hacked via chip then why not EVMs." Ahmad said-"Municipal elections are about to take place in the Allahabad district as the current tenure of civic body is ending on August 2017 and we want them to be fair." When asked about why they took this extreme step, Haseed added-"Earlier we held two protests demanding the same but no one paid any attention. So we took this drastic step and wrote letters with blood." (Image: ABP Live) He also cautioned that still if the demand is not met they will held a massive protest in the district. It may be recalled that after the BJP's clean sweep in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election recently, demanding is gaining momentum that there should be the use of ballot papers instead of EVMs. The opposition parties like Congress and AAP are alleging that their votes are going to BJP. Interestingly taking cognizance of this the Election Commission of India (ECI) recently said that it will throw an open challenge to anyone to come and hack the voting machine. What is even more interesting is even as the time for challenging the results of the recent Assembly elections in the respective High Courts has lapsed, the EC is yet to come up with a schedule for its “open challenge” to experts and political parties to show how the electronic voting machines (EVMs) can be tampered with. Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, last week, told the media that the electoral body would first hold an all-party meeting to convince them that the machines were “non-tamperable and secured”.