PM Modi reprimands INDIA bloc for "misleading citizens" on EVM VVPAT issue, says SC ruling shattered their dreams

Hours after the Supreme Court rejected petitions seeking cross-verifications of votes cast using EVMs with VVPAT, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the decision shattered dreams of the INDIA bloc that "sought to mislead the nation".

"Ever politician in INDIA coalition sinned by trying to create doubts in the hearts of the nation's citizens,"

PM Modi said at an election rally in Araria Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar.

"When the Congress, the RJD and other INDIA bloc parties were in power, the poor, backwards and Dalits used to be deprived of their votes through booth capture. With the introduction of Electronic Voting Machines, they are no longer able to play their old game. Hence, they committed the sin of creating distrust against EVMs," alleged the prime minister.

"But today, the highest court of the country has delivered a verdict a few hours earlier which comes as a tight slap (karara tamacha) on these parties", said Modi, referring to the judgment by which pleas seeking cross-verification of votes cast through EVMs with VVPAT have been rejected.

The SC on Friday rejected all the petitions seeking 100 per cent verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) votes with their Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar also rejected their prayer to revert to paper ballot voting system."We have rejected all of them, after referring to the protocol in place, technical aspects and data which is on record," said the bench in separate yet concurring judgements.

The apex court gave two directions saying, "One direction is after the completion of symbol loading process, the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) should be sealed in containers. The SLU should be stored at least for a period of 45 days."

The verdict of the top court came on petitions which sought cross verification by the voters of votes cast by them as "counted as recorded" in the EVMs with VVPAT.