Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday called for a ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ like campaign to mark the return of ballot papers in elections.

“We don’t want EVMs, we want ballot paper,” he said at the party’s Constitution Day event at Delhi’s Talkatora Stadium.

After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti alliance swept the Maharashtra assembly elections by winning 230 out of 288 seats, opposition parties including Congress alleged foul play in the conduct of polls.

Congress’ Maharashtra observer and Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara even alleged “selective EVM” hacking in the state. 

“We analysed the Maharashtra poll outcome deeply. We felt that in many places EVMs were manipulated,” Parameshwara said.

He also said an obvious question would be why not it happened in Jharkhand and elsewhere. The manipulations are done selectively so that no one can question it, the Congress leader claimed. 

“No one is listening on this (EVM issue), we also went to the Supreme Court, they said to prove it. Public sentiment says that we give our vote to X but it is being marked in the name of Y, so no one is listening to the problems. So it seems except a mass movement there is no other way,” Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole told ANI. 

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Supreme Court rejects plea seeking return of ballot papers

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking the reintroduction of the physical paper ballot voting system in elections in India.

“When you lose, EVMs are tampered with; when you win, EVMs are fine,” a bench of justices Vikram Nath and PB Varale remarked while dismissing the PIL.

“When Chandrababu Naidu or Mr Reddy lost, they say that EVMs are tampered and when they won, they don’t say anything. How can we see this? We are dismissing this. This is not the place where you argue all of this,” the bench said.