New Delhi: The Election Commission, which is facing the heat of Opposition parties for allegedly not taking any action against top leaders of BJP for violating poll codes, landed in another controversy of 'favouring' a political party in West Bengal by displaying the name only under the BJP symbol on EVMs during a mock poll in the state's Barrackpore constituency.
The Opposition parties on Saturday approached the Election Commission over the issue of display of party name only under the BJP symbol on EVMs during a mock poll in West Bengal's Barrackpore constituency. However, the poll panel maintained that the same insignia was used for the party in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
A delegation of opposition parties comprising senior Congress leaders Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Ahmed Patel and Trinamool Congress' Dinesh Trivedi and Derek O'Brien met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora over the issue and demanded that either all such EVMs be removed from the remaining phases of elections or names of other parties be added too.
Former Railway Minister and sitting MP from Barrackpore Dinesh Trivedi said, "It was a "clear fraud on the people" and an attempt to "hack the EVMs"." He also showed purported photographs of the EVM where the party symbol of 'Lotus' included the words BJP.
"To our utter surprise, before the EC could hear our part of the argument, they had already given the judgement that we are carrying on with the process, and there is nothing wrong," he said.