Uttar Pradesh civic polls: Samajwadi Party says BJP won from places where EVMs were used

New Delhi: Alleging that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in the just-concluded Uttar Pradesh civic elections were rigged, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday claimed that the BJP won from only those places where the EVMs were used and performed poorly when it came to ballot papers. SP chief general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav also said the use of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines, along with EVMs, would enhance the confidence of the political parties as well as the candidates in the poll procedure. [caption id=“attachment_3852455” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Addressing a press conference here, Yadav pointed out that while the BJP won 14 of the 16 mayoral posts in the civic polls, the ruling party did poorly in the nagar panchayat and nagar palika parishad elections. “The BJP won (in the civic polls) only at those places where EVMs were used…votes cast in the EVMs in favour of the candidates of the political parties were transferred to the independents,” he alleged. Referring to statistics, Yadav said while the saffron party got a 43 percent vote share in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls earlier this year, it went down to 30 percent in the civic polls. Responding to a question on why arch rivals the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) did not join hands to defeat the saffron party in the elections, he said, “Let the time come…it is too early to say anything.” While the BJP won 68 of the top posts in the nagar parishads, the Samajwadi Party won 45, BSP 29 and 43 posts were won by Independent candidates. Of the top posts in the nagar panchayats, the BJP won 100, while the Samajwadi Party won 83 and BSP 45. The independents won 181 of these posts.