Chief Electoral Officer Swain hold meeting with political parties in Ahmedabad for VVPAT demo

Ahmedabad

Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat B B Swain today held a meeting with te representatives of various political parties here to apprise them about the use of VVPAT machines in the coming assembly polls in the state and other related issues.

Notably Gujarat will become the first major state to hold election with use of VVPAT machines on all the 50128 polling centers. Swain had yesterday held a similar session for media in Gandhinagar and said that the number of voters in the state has increased by around 52 lakhs including 10 lakh first time voters since the last election in 2012 and has reached the figure of around 4.33 crores.

Today in the meeting held at the Circuit house annexe the representatives of ruling BJP, main opposition Congress, BSP and other parties were given a detailed demonstration of the VVPAT machine including how these would be used for polling.

The queries of the representatives of political parties were also answered.

The District Election Officer cum collector of Ahmedabad, Ms Avantika Singh and other officials were also present.

Notably, as casting of each vote with VVPAT attached to EVMs would on an average take 7 seconds, the Election Commission has also been requested to extend the time of voting for the elections likely to be held in December this year. Over 70 thousand VVPAT machines would be used for the polls and in case of any dispute the counting would also be done using the paper receipt issued by the machines.