The Hindu : Front Page : No EVMs for local body polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 20, 2007
ePaper

Front Page

Front Page

No EVMs for local body polls

S. Vydhianathan and T. Ramakrishnan

S. Vydhianathan and

T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI: The State Election Commission, which announced on Tuesday that electronic voting machines would be used for elections to 44 wards in the urban local bodies slated for February 8, has now decided against the use of EVMs.

The conventional system of voting — ballot papers — will be adopted for all the wards, said D. Chandrasekaran, State Election Commissioner. The latest decision comes a day after the resignation of 98 councillors of the Chennai Corporation.

Among the reasons cited by him for taking the decision are the requirement of a large number of EVMs, the "laborious process" in hiring them and the cost involved in procuring the machines. Another reason is that the Commission wants to maintain uniformity in the mode of voting.

In Chennai, 2,000 EVMs would be required and it would take at least three months to get the machines from the Election Commission of India (ECI) on hire, the Commissioner said. As for purchasing the EVMs, he said it would cost around Rs.10,000 per machine.

Sources in the State Election department, however, say that non-availability of EVMs is not a constraint. Though EVMs were used during the Assembly elections in May 2006, they were not used in the polls to urban local bodies that took place four months later.

[The rules governing the elections to the urban local bodies in the State do provide for the use of EVMs].

The question of lock-in period of six months for the EVMs — machines utilised for one election should not be used again for any other election in six months because of the possibility of litigation — does not arise. As far as the machines utilised for the Assembly polls are concerned, the mandatory period is over. Besides, all the machines utilised during the Assembly polls are stored within the State. However, it is for the Commission to make a formal request to EC.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page