On last day of campaign, Kejriwal alleges conspiracy to manipulate EVMs

New Delhi, Feb 3 (IANS) Hours before the close of the election campaign on Monday, AAP leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday alleged a conspiracy to manipulate EVMs in the February 5 Assembly election, claiming that the rivals are planning to erase about 10 per cent of his party’s votes.

Calling upon AAP supporters to vote in large numbers, Kejriwal said, in a video, “Every single party supporter should step out and vote on February 5.”

Kejriwal also announced the launch of a website on which the AAP would upload six key informations about each polling booth so that the EVMs are not tampered with after voting.

“We have turned wiser after our experience in Haryana and Maharashtra elections,” he said.

To counter attempts of wrongdoing on the counting day, the six informations to be uploaded on AAP website would include name of the polling booth, name of booth presiding officer, the ID number of control unit, the last count of votes cast till night on the booth, the percentage of battery charge in the last EVM machine used at a booth and the name of the polling agent.

He said the only way to defeat the design of EVM manipulation is to raise our party’s voter turnout by 15 per cent so that even if they try to erase our votes by 10 per cent, we may still win by 5 per cent.

Earlier on Sunday, the Congress raised doubts about the possible use of unfair means in the February 5 Delhi Assembly election and constituted an eight-member Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) to monitor “the conduct of free and fair elections by the Election Commission of India.”

Kejriwal’s allegation on possible EVM manipulation is the latest in a series of charges levelled against the Election Commission of India.

Apart from accusing the EC of not stopping alleged election code violations by rival candidates, the AAP National Convenor has also accused Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar of being biased in favour of the BJP as he was looking for a post-retirement posting after February 28.

In a separate video issued earlier, Kejriwal addressed voters availing the facility of voting from home and called upon them not to get their fingers inked even after accepting any cash, if any, offered by the teams visiting their residences.

–IANS

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