Opposition meets over Remote Voting Machines; TMC, BSP skip

New Delhi, Jan 15: Several opposition parties on Sunday attended the meeting called by Congress to discuss the proposal of Remote Voting Machines (RVM) initiated by the Election Commission of India (ECI). However, Mamata Banerjee's TMC skipped the meeting.

The parties that attended the meeting has opposed the ECI's proposal, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said after the meeting. "We are extremely grateful to all the political parties who have responded to our requests to meet and discuss about the proposal of the ECI on the remote voting machine. The political parties which attended were JDU, Shiv Sena, National Conference, CPI-M, JMM, RJD, PDP, VCK, RUML, and Kapil Sibal. NCP and SP have conveyed their views to me," ANI quoted Singh as saying at the meeting.

"The overall view of all political parties who attended today, unanimously opposed the proposal of Remote Voting Machine because it is still very sketchy, the proposal is not concrete. There are huge political anomalies and problems in the proposal. The definition of migrant labour and the numbers of migrant labour are all not very clear. We have unanimously made up our minds to oppose the proposal of RVM," said Singh. "We have been asked to give our reply by January 31, so we have decided to meet again on January 25 to send our reply jointly or separately but our clear mandate and view is that we don't support RVM," he added.

The TMC along with NCP and SP did not attend the meeting. On the other hand, BSP chief Mayawati has also raised the issue, but did not turn up for the meeting. "One end she is questioning the EVM. and other ends not joining it. Every party is entitled to its view," Singh stated.

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, who quit Congress last year, also attended the meeting on individual status. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Manoj Jha, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Vijay Hansda, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D Raja and CPI(M) leader Nilotpal Basu attended the meeting called by the Congress. Apart from this, the leaders of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), RSP, JD(U), and Muslim League were present at the meeting.

The Election Commission in December said it has developed a prototype of the remote electronic voting machine for domestic migrant voters and has invited political parties for a demonstration on January 16.

The poll panel has also floated a concept note on remote voting and sought the views of political parties on the legal, administrative and technical challenges in implementing it, according to a statement.

It encourages domestic migrants to exercise their franchise through RVM, thereby allowing them to cast their votes from the place they are working. The EC has invited all recognised eight national and 57 regional political parties to attend the meeting on January 16 to demonstrate the functioning of the multi-constituency prototype Remote EVM.