Thirty-six hours before the results of the Uttar Pradesh elections are to come out, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday alleged ‘EVM fraud’ in the state citing party workers of his ally SBSP have seized a vehicle full of EVMs in Varanasi district.
The BJP termed it an admission of defeat by Yadav with Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya saying that the SP chief was blaming the Election Commission out of fear of losing the elections and should have rather waited for the counting day to blame the EVMs for his defeat. The ECI officials and the District Magistrate of Varanasi also clarified that the said EVMs had nothing to do with the counting process and were meant for training purposes.
The said EVMs were meant for training of polling officials and carried stickers prominently saying the same, as evident in videos of the incident, ECI officials clarified. These officials also clarified that the EVMs in which votes were cast are all lying sealed in strong rooms in CRPFs supervision.
The Samajwadi Party chief, meanwhile, also alleged that officials close to CM Yogi Adityanath were pressurising district magistrates to slow down the speed of counting in the seats wherever the BJP was losing. The SP also lodged a complaint with the Election Commission in Lucknow. Speaking at a press conference at SP headquarters in Lucknow, Akhilesh Yadav said, “One can’t move EVMs without informing candidates, as per rules. The CM’s chief secretary is calling DMs to influence the counting process and asking them to slow down counting wherever the BJP was losing.”
Yadav also targeted the exit polls, which have predicted a second straight win for the BJP. “There is a wave against BJP on the ground. I didn’t want to speak on Exit Polls, but it’s all done to create a false perception that BJP is winning, so that when they cheat it would look normal,” said Akhilesh.
Asking people to guard their vote, the SP chief said, “I request all the people to guard their vote. This is the last election to save democracy, if we fail then a revolution would be needed just like we did for our independence. This is a dangerous sign for democracy. We will have to sit 3 days to guard EVMs.” Yadav also claimed that the SP is winning the Varanasi South and Ayodhya seats and said that is why BJP is rattled.
Union Minister and BJP’s co-in charge Anurag Thakur said Akhilesh Yadav has not even waited for March 10 to say that “EVMs are unfaithful”. Reacting to Yadav’s comments on EVMs, BJP leader and Law Minister in Yogi Adityanath government Brajesh Pathak responded, “BJP is coming with a majority under Narendra Modi’s guidance. Samajwadi party is never going to believe that BJP is winning the election.”
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