Webcast Counting: Samjawadi Party To Poll Body After Voting Machine Row

The opposition Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, seen as the big challenger to the BJP in the recently concluded assembly elections, has demanded that the Election Commission webcast the counting of votes live. The link, the party said, should be given to the political parties which contested the election, apart from the Election Commissioner of India and the other key election officials.

Citing the live webcast of election in at least more than 50 per of election centres, the Samajwadi Party said in a letter that the counting also should be webcast to ensure that it is "efficient, independent and free of partisanship".

The letter was tweeted by the Samajwadi Party a day after it claimed that Electronic Voting machines were being stolen from a counting centre in Varanasi. Accusing the government of "theft", Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav pointed out that in 2017, the BJP's winning margin on nearly 50 seats were less than 5,000 votes.