Maha village passes resolution to use ballot papers in future polls

Pune: Kolewadigram sabha in Maharashtra’s Satara district has resolved to conduct future elections on ballot papers, be-coming the second village in the state to pass a resolution against EVMs. The village comes under the Karad (South) assembly constituency, earlier represented by senior Con-gress leader and former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.

He lost the electoral contest in November against BJP candidate Atul Bhosale by 39,355 votes. The resolution was passed after residents of Kolewadi expressed doubts over the votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines. This resolution was passed days after a section of villagers from Markadwadi in Solapur’s Malshiras constituency tried to conduct mock “re-polling” using ballot papers expressing doubt on the credibility of EVMs.

Their bid was thwarted by the administration and police, leading to the registration of cases.

“The resolution was passed on December 2 in the gram sabha meeting respecting the sentiments of villagers who demanded that upcoming elections be held on ballot pa-pers and not on EVMs,” Shankarrao Patil, husband of the village sarpanch Ratnamala Patil, said on Tuesday. Patil said villagers were surprised as Prithviraj Chavan failed to get a desired lead of votes in Kolewadi during assembly elections. A Gram Sevak also confirmed the passing of the resolution.

“The Kolewadi gram sabha passed a resolution stating that future elections should be conducted through ballot papers without EVMs,” a villager said. He said the Election Com-mission should revert to the ballot paper mechanism in view of a “collective demand”. “We have resolved that the people of Kolewadi will vote only if the process is conduct-ed using ballot papers. We won’t vote if EVMs are used in future elections,” he said. If the administration doesn’t al-low us to vote on ballot papers, we will boycott the polling process, he added. Satara district collector Jitendra Dudi said his office had not received a copy of the purported resolution from the gram panchayat. “Since we have not received the copy, it would not be appropriate for me to comment. Once we receive the copy, we will take the re-quired measures,” he said. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday said no mismatch was found between the votes polled and cor-responding tally of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips in random counting in the last month’s Maharashtra assembly elections.

The mandatory counting of VVPAT slips from five randomly selected polling stations in each assembly constituency was completed successfully, the ECI said in a statement. Opposition parties in the state had questioned the integrity of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) after the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti coalition won a landslide victory in the No-vember 20 elections.