'No Discrepancies Found In VVPAT Slips Count,' Chief Electoral Officer Clarifies After Opposition Raises Concerns

Mumbai: The office of the chief electoral officer (CEO) has clarified that no discrepancies were found in the process of counting Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips in the recently concluded Assembly elections.

The process is mandatory as per the Election Commission of India (ECI) norms where VVPAT slips at five polling stations, picked through the lottery system, in each of the 288 assembly constituencies verified with the votes polled on EVMs.

Verification of 1,140 VVPAT slips in all the assembly constituencies was completed on November 23 at the time of counting of votes. The purpose of the process was to verify the number of VVPAT slips with the number of votes of each candidate in the EVMs in the presence of the ECI observers and the counting representatives of the candidates.

The statement is significant given the questions raised by the main opposition the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Communist Party of India (Marxist) and some losing candidates from the ruling Mahayuti.

The reports received from the 36 districts say that no discrepancy was found anywhere between the candidate-wise number of votes in the EVMs and the candidate-wise number of slips in the VVPAT machines, the CEO has said. The exercise was carried out in the presence of the candidates' representatives at each counting centre. The representatives have signed the documents confirming the completion of the relevant process after completing the process.

The entire process was covered and filmed by CCTVs and preserved, and all the rules were strictly followed for all the assembly constituencies in the state, added the ECI.