Prakash Ambedkar's Party to file PIL against the Election Commission and EVMs

Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Agadhi (VBA) has decided to file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the Election Commission and EVMs.

The VBA's move comes after Ambedkar claimed that total voting in the constituencies and count of votes did not match. Hence, the VBA has decided to file the PIL along with protests across Maharashtra on 17th June. That said, the PIL will be filed in Bombay High Court. Confirming his party's decision, Ambedkar tweeted and said:

"In the Maharashtra Lok Sabha elections, the total voting in all the constituencies and the actual count of votes is different. Election Commission should explain this. We will file 48 separate petitions for 48 separate constituencies in the High Court. If needed, we will take our fight to the road," he said.

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Ambedkar has assured that all the candidates who contested will be a part of these protests. The VBA bagged more than 40 lakh votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. It heavily dented the Congress-NCP alliance with its ally AIMIM. Meanwhile, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar raised questions on the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines and said he would discuss the issue with other opposition members in Delhi.

"The problem is not the with the EVM or VVPAT where the people vote, but with the machine with the electoral officer that is finally counted. We are going to go in depth into it now by discussing this with technnogists and experts and Opposition members in Delhi," he told party workers at a meeting." he said.

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Pawar added that in future there might be problems if the people came to know that their votes were not going to the right candidate and asserted this could not be allowed to happen.

""If people realise that the vote they are casting is not going for their candidate of choice, they may keep calm now but they may take law into their hands in future. We should not allow that to happen," he said.

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The party received a crushing blow in the recently held Lok Sabha elections and managed to win just four out of the 19 seats it contested from in Maharashtra.
Its ally, Congress, performed even more poorly as it could secure just two seats despite fighting on 25 seats in the state.