Srinagar: The Congress and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah are at odds over the reliability of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), marking another point of tension within the INDIA bloc alliance. Congress MP Manickam Tagore defended his party’s stance and asked Abdullah to “check his facts” after the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister questioned opposition parties’ objections to EVMs.
Tagore clarified that the Samajwadi Party (SP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Shiv Sena (UBT) had voiced concerns over EVMs, not just the Congress. “The Congress Working Committee resolution clearly addresses the Election Commission of India. Why this approach to our partners after being Chief Minister?” Tagore tweeted.
Abdullah, however, dismissed the objections, arguing that EVMs cannot be criticized selectively. “When you get 100-plus MPs using the same EVMs and celebrate that as a victory, you can’t then, a few months later, say… we don’t like these EVMs because now the election results aren’t going the way we want them to,” Abdullah told PTI in an interview.
Citing his own experience, he added, “When I lost in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, I never blamed the EVMs. How can you have problems with EVMs and then continue to fight elections? If you don’t trust the machines, then you shouldn’t fight elections. You can’t say if I win, I’ll keep quiet, but if I lose, the machines are faulty.”
The Congress and its allies, including the SP and NCP, have recently called for a return to paper ballots following significant electoral defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra. Abdullah’s remarks suggest a disconnect between the National Conference and its ally on this issue.
Seizing the moment, BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya took aim at the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi, tweeting, “EVMs can’t be good when Congress wins and bad when they lose. Rahul Gandhi is increasingly looking like a loser no one wants to stand with.”
