Omar Abdullah said that one can’t accept election results when it’s a win, and blame EVMs when it’s a loss. Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah has dismissed INDIA ally Congress’s vehement objection to Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), opening another point of friction with the INDIA Bloc ally. After its loss in the Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly polls, the Congress has expressed doubts about the EVM’s infallibility and the election outcome. It has demanded a return to the paper ballot.
Abdullah said that one can’t accept election results when it’s a win, and blame EVMs when it’s a loss. “When you get a hundred plus members of Parliament using the same EVMs, and you celebrate that as sort of a victory for your party, you can’t then a few months later turn around and say… we don’t like these EVMs because now the election results aren’t going the way we would like them to,” Abdullah said in an interview with PTI.
He said parties should not contest elections if they do not trust the voting mechanism.
“If you have problems with the EVMs, then you should be consistent in those problems,” he said when asked if the opposition in general and Congress, in particular, is in the wrong for focusing on EVMs. Abdullah responded with ‘God forbid’ when it was pointed out that what he was saying makes him sound like a BJP spokesperson. “No, it’s just that… what’s right is right,” he added. He said that he speaks based on principles rather than with partisan loyalty and cited his support for infrastructure projects like the Central Vista as an example of his independent thinking. “Contrary to what everybody else believes, I think that what’s happening with this Central Vista project in Delhi is a damn good thing. I believe constructing a new Parliament building was an excellent idea. We needed a new Parliament building. The old one had outlived its utility,” he said.
Friction between the National Conference and the Congress?
Omar Abdullah’s comments come amid reports about the National Conference’s unhappiness with ally Congress after the September Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Reports have suggested that NC officials weren’t happy as the Congress did not do its bit during the campaigning and left all the heavy lifting to them. Still, the NC won 42 seats in the 90-member Assembly, and the Congress got six. The chief minister emphasised that electoral machines remain the same regardless of the election outcome, and parties should not use them as a convenient excuse for defeat. He gave his example of facing defeat in Lok Sabha polls while winning a majority in the September assembly polls. Earlier, he had also asked Congress to justify the INDIA Bloc leadership role and not take it for granted.
