“If the EVM has to be utilised in a way that even after a month or more of the voting, it has to be kept locked in strong rooms, then isn’t it better to conduct the polls through ballot paper? The point of using the EVM is to get the result faster but the implication of keeping the EVMs for months is that there is a possibility of tampering,” noted Hardik Patel, youth leader of the Patidar movement and member of the Indian National Congress (INC) in a program held in Delhi against the malfunctioning and several other issues related to the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).

Quit India Day, August 9 was marked as a day of protest to demand that EVMs Quit India. In 1942, on August 8 at an all India Congress Committee session in Bombay, the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India movement. The movement had demanded an end to the British rule. EVM VirodhiRashtriya Jan Andolan, a platform of various political parties and civil society groups, had highlighted earlier that there is a “threat” to Indian democracy by the use of EVMs.

EVM Bharat Chodo, DeshBachaoaurLoktantraBachao’ (EVM leave India, Save India, Save Democracy) slogans reverberated across the country in various cities including the national capital Delhi. On Wednesday, a press conference was organised by the EVMVirodhiRashtriya Jan Andolanat the Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi, in which the body decided to hold a protest march on August 9, the Quit India Movement Day, from Mandi House to JantarMantar. The protest, which started at 11.00 am on Friday, was attended by several EVM experts, activists and political leaders like AamAadmi Party (AAP) MP, Sanjay Singh, Danish Ali, INC’s Hardik Patel, CPI-ML’s DeepankarBhattacharjeeamong others.

The victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, that gave a seemingly “massive mandate” to the party for the second time was not without several key questions being raised. Throughout the seven stage voting process, questions of not just the Election Commission’s partisan role but more specifically, EVM’s malfunctioning, being stored in not very secure locations, surfaced.

Incidents of massive Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) ‘malfunctions’ were reported in each of the seven phases of the elections. Citizens, society and several leaders among the opposition parties questioned the reliability and credibility of these machines throughout the election process. 
Patel added, “Many people say that it’s a question on Loktantra that we are raising questions on EVMs, but in 2009, even SubramaniamSwamywent to court questioning EVMs.”

“On any polling date, day and night one sees the news that now the EVM has stopped working, but no one is asking questions or saying anything. And anyone who is raising questions is treated like a mad person. It’s said that they are against the country because they are raising questions on election results. But all the questions are valid. In the entire world, no country is using EVMs and our country is using it,” he said responding to the allegations that those raising questions about EVMs were “anti-national”.

CPI- ML’s Deepankar Bhattacharjee said, “First they refused to count [VVPAT], and after a bit of struggle, when they did count, around 2-3% of votes cast, we saw that EC didn’t answer the questions on this. The Election Commission didn’t answer us on the difference of more than 370 votes in the counting of VVPAT. This is why we feel that we can’t trust the EVMs.”

He expressed anger over the conspiratorial manner in which the government has been making key decisions. “Increasingly, we are seeing a government which wants to run the country on a conspiracy. This government’s method to function is through conspiracies, whether it’s demonetisation or how Article 370 was abrogated, all these issues which have been executed in the manner of conspiracy. So in the hands of such a government, which has weakened all the institutions right from EC to any other, we can’t trust this machine in such a situation,” he said.

Anjali Bhardwaj, associated with the Right to Information (RTI) movement said, “If I exercise my freedom of expression, there should be complete transparency. If I cast a vote to a party, then it should be visible and transparent to me that I have voted for that party.  So our demand is that is completely related to the rights guaranteed to us by the constitution, it is associated with our rights to vote, our right to freedom of expression and our right for complete transparency…. So the results of the voting shouldn’t be compromised in any manner; that will be the biggest threat to our democracy, because if we can change the government without indulging in bloodshed, then that’s the biggest achievement [for a democracy]. And so, the fight against EVM is for the simple fact that people’s faith on this process should remain. If questions have been raised that when we cast our vote, the votes go to some other party, it will be completely wrong to ignore such questions.”

A letter to be submitted to the President on this issue was released. Protests also took place in cities across the country namely Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Pune etc.

Time and again, the movement has highlighted the following questions and concerns:
ECI claims EVM’s can’t be Hacked! But each of their claim on procedural sanctity and safeguard are turning out to be dubious, contradictory and false…
1) ECI has always claimed only government employees of BEL and ECIL handled EVM’S. But Private Contractors and Contract Employees used in 2019 General Elections for handling, uploading and repairing EVM’S and VVPATS!
2) First Level Check (FLCs) for EVMs are under way in election bound Maharashtra and Haryana. Political parties unaware about FLC’s being done. Why is ECI acting in secrecy?
3) ECI has always claimed the chip used in EVM’S has been One Time Programmable (OTP). However RTI replies from BEL have proved chip is rewritable.
4) How does ECI ensure safety of election process and EVM when private companies and individuals hired on contract are given to manage EVM’S? Whose accountability is it anyway?

#EVMBharatChodo!
#EVMHataoDeshBachao!

The post If EVMs are supposed to save time & be efficient, EVMs stored for months aren’t serving the purpose: Hardik Patel appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Patel was hoping to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on the Congress ticket. However, now that the stay on the conviction has been denied, he can’t contest the election as per the Representation of People Act and a related Supreme Court ruling.

The Gujarat government on Wednesday vehemently opposed Hardik’s petition in which he sought to get a stay on his conviction in the said case. As per reports, public prosecutor Mitesh Amin argued before Justice A G Uraizee that Hardik was facing as many as 17 cases which reflected “badly’ on his conduct.

Amin also said that Hardik had accepted that he was present at the site of the riot at Visnagar in Mehsana district.

On the other hand, Hardik’s lawyer IH Syed said if the conviction wasn’t stayed, it will cause “irreparable damage” to his client as he intended to contest Lok Sabha election. He also added, “Nobody had seen Hardik Patel committing the alleged crime and the trial court didn’t examine any independent witnesses.”

The sessions court at Visnagar had sentenced Hardik to two years’ imprisonment for rioting and arsin in Visnagara town during 2015 Patidar agitation. The high court granted him bail and suspended his sentence in August 2018, but his conviction wasn’t stayed.

Patel tweeted on the occasion saying he “welcomed” the HC’s decision.

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हार्दिक पटेल ने पाटीदार आरक्षण आंदोलन को दोबारा हवा देने की बात कही, और कहा ये आंदोलन आने वाले समय में जारी रहेगा। गौरतलब है कि हार्दिक को पिछले साल छह महीने के लिए गुजरात से बाहर रहने की शर्त पर जमानत दी थी। उनकी यह समयसीमा इसी महीने 17 जनवरी को समाप्‍त हो गई। हार्दिक के मुताबिक उनके खिलाफ जो भी केस चल रहे हैं इनकी उन्‍हें परवाह नहीं है। वो पाटीदार समुदाय के लिए आंदोलन करते रहेंगे।

हार्दिक पटेल ने उत्तर प्रदेश में विधान सभा को दौरान बीजेपी की खिलाफत करने की बात कही। उन्होंने कहा जो पार्टी उनका सहयोग देगी वह उसी का साथ देंगे। दोपहर बाद हार्दिक पटेल जैसे ही गुजरात पहुंचे उनका स्वागत सैकड़ों की संख्या में मौजूद पटेल समुदाय के लोगों किया। इसके बाद उन्होंने हिम्मतनगर में एक रैली को संबोधित किया। हार्दिक पटेल के नेतृत्व वाली पाटीदार अनामत आंदोलन समिति ने आज की रैली की ‘‘पटेल कोटा आंदोलन के दूसरे दौर की शुरूआत’’ बताया है।
 
गुजरात के मुख्यमंत्री विजय रुपानी ने कहा कि उनकी सरकार हार्दिक और उनके अन्य पक्षकारों से आरक्षण के मुद्दे पर बातचीत करने के लिए तैयार हैं। मु्ख्यमंत्री ने आगे कहा कि हमने उन्हें हिम्मतनगर में रैली करने की अनुमति दी है।

Courtesy: National Dastak
 

The post गुजरात लौटते ही मोदी पर हमलावर हुए हार्दिक पटेल appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image: The Indian Express

Earlier this year, the review committee headed by the then CM Anandiben Patel had assured withdrawal of 90 per cent of the cases after having agreed to have a discussion with the community leaders “sympathetically”, according to an Indian Express report. Obviously a favoured community/caste in Gujarat, unlike the state's Muslims and Dalits, the Patidars have received this 'favour' from an otherwise government hostile to people's rights.
 
According to the recent news reports, deputy chief minister Nitin Patel said that out of the 438 cases registered during the Patidar agitation, 416 have already been withdrawn. “We have also decided to withdraw the remaining cases registered against the Patidars. The government is having a sympathetic view towards the Patidar community,” he said.
 
Out of the 438 cases lodged against the members of the agitation, Gujarat Police was the complainant in 230 cases on behalf of the government.
 
According to police sources, the cases of violence, arson and assaults on police were registered against the Patidars during their agitation for reservations in jobs under the other backward class quota.
 
Times of India reported that the process to withdraw the remaining cases, which are not serious in nature, will be initiated before Diwali, according to a few sources.
 
A mass gathering of the Patidar community members on August 25 last year had turned violent. Patidar leader and convener of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti Hardik Patel was also among those arrested in connection with the vandalism. He was however, granted a bail earlier this year.

Also read: Anandiben Patel's Offer to Quit: Beginning of the End of BJP’s Nearly 20-years Old Reign in Gujarat?

The post Gujarat Govt withdraws 95 per cent Cases registered during Patidar Agitation appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Images Courtesy: Hindustan Times

UPDATE:
UPDATE

By Friday, September 9, all newspapers had carried reports of the fiasco at the meet. "Iron mesh & arrests can't save Shah meet" read the headline of The Telegraph.

The report further said that the BJP president Amit Shah cut his speech to four minutes and hurried out as Hardik Patel's supporters disrupted a felicitation by Patidar businessmen in Surat today, undeterred by a 5,000-strong police deployment or the preventive arrests of their leaders. About 1,000 quota agitators fought off the police's tear gas with stones and stormed the ground where Shah, chief minister Vijay Rupani, two central ministers and 38-odd Patidar (Patel) BJP MLAs were to be feted under a canopy.

As they smashed and threw about chairs, successive speakers uttered a few cursory words from behind a protective metal mesh – placed around the dais to prevent shoe attacks – before they were evacuated.

The supporters of Hardik, leader of the Patidars' OBC quota agitation who is in six months' exile from Gujarat under his bail conditions, had thrown the government a dare by publicly threatening to disrupt the event.

A jittery BJP had deployed its entire state machinery -from sending 100-odd MLAs to Surat to erecting the iron mesh before the stage – to protect the function, held in the city's Patel-dominated diamond hub of Varachha.

Surat police had detained 10 key aides of Hardik who had been camping in Surat, holding meetings in Patel neighbourhoods and asking people to disrupt the event.

That the ruling party still failed to prevent the fiasco underscores the challenge it faces in winning back the Patels, whose desertion had routed the party in last year's local polls.

Trouble began as the organisers delivered the welcome speech after the event started around 7pm. State BJP chief Jitu Vaghani and Rupani spoke for less then three minutes each after Union minister Purushottam Rupala's appeals failed to pacify the agitators. By the time Shah, the last speaker, got up to address the audience, the gathering had thinned from 25,000 to about 2,000.Within 20 minutes, it was all over.

The Hindustan Times reports that (Hiral Dave, Hindustan Times, Ahmedabad) posters saying ‘General Dyer Go Back’ have come up in Surat’s Patidar-dominated areas like Varachha on Thursday, hours before BJP chief Amit Shah is to be felicitated by the community’s business lobby.

The report can be read here.

In other posters, Shah has been accused of abusing Patidar ‘mothers and sisters’ and the 44 Patidar MLAs in the state dubbed as good for nothing.
Hardik Patel, the founder of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) who is leading an agitation to demand reservation in education and government jobs for his community for over a year now, has been addressing Shah as General Dyer after Patidars were charged with batons at the end of a massive rally in Ahmedabad in August 2015.

Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer was a British army official responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in which hundreds of unarmed men, women and children were killed in Amritsar in 1919. Several men were severely injured in the lathi charge, triggering state-wide riots, killing nine youths and causing damage worth Rs 44 crore to public property.

Patidar protesters are believed to have pasted these posters against Amit Shah

This embarrassment to Shah comes at a time when the Patidar Abhivadan Samaroh Samiti (PASS) let by Patidar businessmen, including diamond traders and textile mill owners, will felicitate Shah, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani and 43 Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs later in the evening.

On September 8, the police registered four complaints against the PAAS members for violating the police commissioner’s notification by holding public meetings in residential societies in Surat to plan the boycott of the felicitation function.In the backdrop of the agitation, the BJP has been struggling to retain its key vote bank of the financially powerful Patidar community a year before the state is set to go for the assembly polls.

Images Courtesy:Hindustan Times
 

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