ABVP demands EVMs for JNUSU polls, Aisa opposes

Months ahead of the student body elections in Jawaharlal Nehru University, the ABVP has demanded the varsity to introduce electronic voting machines (EVM) in place of traditional ballot papers for polling.

“Every year lots of paper is wasted in creating ballots and electoral rolls for the student body elections in JNU. This is unnecessary and not a feasible idea, when all over the world people are switching to electronic and digital means of voting. The authencity is not questionable because, in our democracy, most of the elections are conducted through EVMs only,” Saurabh Kumar Sharma, the lone ABVP member in JNUSU said in a letter to the newly appointed HRD minister Prakash Javadekar. The letter has also been shared with the JNU vice-chancellor, Union environment minister Anil Dave, the JNU registrar and the dean of students.

“It will help build a cle-an and tidy campus during the elections, which otherwise is full of wasted paper and littering which happens around this time. Other universities in India have also been using EVMs in their student body elections in a very successful way,” the letter added.

While, the JNU Stude-nts’ Union elections are held every year in September when the varsity votes to elect their leaders for four crucial posts, the elections for student representatives of the Gender Sensitisat-ion Committee Against Sexual Harassment, a body which deals with complaints of sexual persecution, are held in April.

Meanwhile, the left-affiliated All-India Students Association (Aisa) opposed the demand, saying that unlike EVMs, ballot papers, cannot be manipulated and is part of the “clean politics” in JNU.