Chandrababu Naidu to file review petition on VVPATs

Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is planning to file a review petition in Supreme Court over counting of slips in at least 25 per cent of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines in every assembly constituency.

Naidu was speaking to media after casting his vote at Vundavalli polling station in Amaravati. His wife Bhuvaneshwari, son Nara Lokesh and daughter-in-law Nara Brahmani also exercised their franchise.

Naidu said he was upset with the reports that electronic voting machines (EVMs) had failed to function at several places in the state. “Right from the beginning, I have been saying that EVMs are unreliable as they were vulnerable to technical problems. I have been demanding that Election Commission should return to the ballot paper method, as EVMs can be tampered,” he said.

He demanded that at least now, the Election Commission should take a decision on conducting the polls with ballot papers.

To a question, Naidu said he was contemplating filing a review petition in the Supreme Court seeking counting of slips in at least 25 per cent of the VVPAT machines in every constituency so as to crosscheck the genuineness of the EVMs.