Two Congressmen from Ahmedabad former Ahmedabad Mayor Himmatsinh Patel and sitting Congress MLA from Shaherkotda, Shailesh Parmar have filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) at the Gujarat High Court against Gujarat government’s amendments to the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC) Act to introduce online voting in the elections to the urban bodies, calling it against constitutional provisions, after which a division bench has issued notices to the respondents and has kept it for hearing on August 2.

As respondents, the petitioners have named the chief secretary, state urban development department secretary and Chief Election Officer of the State Election Commission.

According to the petitioners’ advocate Ashish Shah, the election process in India has to be free and fair and the ballot has to be secret in any election. However, the recent amendments made to the BPMC Act and its rules are in gross violation of the constitutional mandate since there are a number of possibilities that the process of online voting could be misused, according to the petition.

Also, privacy of any e-vote (through SMS and Internet) will be compromised as there is no safeguard to make sure the person has cast the vote in isolation and as per his wish, the petition says.

The proposed amendments in the BPMC (Registration of Electors) Rules, 1994 and in the BPMC Act, the petitioner added, may also bring in problems of verification of a vote cast and possible virus attack that could tamper the entire database of the e-votes and can result into a big election fraud. It may also lead to the purchase or selling of votes by the voters and political fraternity. The petitioners have demanded that the amendments made to the BPMC Act be quashed.