Restore voter trust through paper ballots, says KTR

The BRS urged the Election Commission to reinstate paper ballots for future elections, citing mistrust in EVMs. Party leader KT Rama Rao also demanded reforms in election symbols, accountability for poll promises, and transparency in voter roll revisions.

Hyderabad: The BRS on Tuesday urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to bring back the paper ballot system for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections and the 2029 general elections, citing widespread public distrust in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The party emphasised the need to restore voter trust in democracy and the electoral system.

Speaking to the media after meeting ECI officials in Delhi, BRS working president KT Rama Rao said countries like the US, UK, Germany and Italy had experimented with EVMs, but abandoned them due to a lack of public confidence.

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“India, being the world’s largest democracy with over 100 crore voters, must restore voter trust through paper ballots,” he said.

He also raised concerns over allegations that EVMs were causing electoral distortions.

“Voters believe their votes are not going to the intended candidates. We raised this concern strongly with the ECI,” he said.

The party questioned the removal of around 65 lakh voters in Bihar as part of an intensive revision. Emphasising the need to take all political parties into confidence and build public trust, the BRS suggested constituting all-party committees from village to national levels to scrutinise the deleted voter lists whenever electoral rolls are revised, and said corrective steps must be taken.

Rama Rao also pressed the Commission to take action against political parties that fail to deliver on their election manifestos. Referring to the Congress in Telangana, he said: “They won with 420 false promises but failed to deliver them in the last 20 months. If parties cheat people after coming to power, their membership should be cancelled and they must be barred from contesting,” he demanded.

The BRS reiterated its long-standing demand to remove election symbols that resemble its party symbol “Car”, pointing to the party’s defeat on multiple occasions.

“We lost several seats by narrow margins due to confusion with identical symbols like the Road Roller, Chapati Roller or Ship. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, a similar symbol polled 27,000 votes in Bhongir constituency, and BRS lost the seat to the Congress by just 5,000 votes,” he said.

Responding to a question, Rama Rao dismissed the Congress party’s protest for BC reservations in Delhi as a cruel joke. He said the ruling party had failed to implement promised measures like the BC Sub-Plan and reservation in government contracts, which were within its purview, instead of repeatedly blaming the Centre.

He also rubbished the P C Ghose Commission report on the Kaleshwaram project, calling it trash and politically driven.

“Only a 60-page summary was released with select content. However, they did not release the 665-page full report which does not support their narrative. This indicates that the Commission is clearly politically motivated,” he added.