Former MP Lagadapati Rajagopal met with sarcastic criticism for his totally failed survey on the Telangana 2018 assembly election. But now he appeared to support his survey results. He says there are still doubts on the manner in which the election was conducted and asked why the VVPAT slips were not fully counted and why the election authorities were taking two days time to declare polling percentages even when using electronic voting machines.

There is a new demand coming to the surface for taking of the VVPATs (voter verified paper audit trail) slips for all the voters so that they will detect if their votes are cast correctly or not. In Telangana poll, only sample VVPATs are taken for sake of random verification. AP CM Chandrababu Naidu has been strongly demanding taking of the VVPATs for each and every individual voter for the sake of transparency.
Lagadapati’s comment became significant as many parties are demanding removal of EVMs and reintroduction of the old system. Their argument is EVMs can be hacked because of latest high tech development in electronics field. As the pepper spray MP, Lagadapati’s statements still gather wider attention in national politics.

G.Ravikiran